Bird species’ community responses to land use in the suburbanizing Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA, were contrasted among reserves, rural lands, and suburbs. For each land use type, bird composition, diversity, and abundance were recorded for 2 years in 99 plots in three sampling units (each 4500 ha). A habitat gradient defined by canopy structure (grasslands to savannas to forests) was influenced ...

To explore the importance of the Eurasian steppe region (EASR) in global carbon cycling, we analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of the aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) of the entire EASR from 1982 to 2013. The ANPP in the EASR was estimated from the Integrated ANPPNDVI model, which is an empirical model developed based on field-observed ANPP and long-term normalized difference veget...

Subalpine grasslands are highly seasonal environments and likely subject to strong variability in nitrogen (N) dynamics. Plants and microbes typically compete for N acquisition during the growing season and particularly at plant peak biomass. During snowmelt, plants could potentially benefit from a decrease in competition by microbes, leading to greater plant N uptake associated with active gro...

BACKGROUND Current plant--herbivore interaction models and experiments with mammalian herbivores grazing plant monocultures show the superiority of a maximizing forage quality strategy (MFQ) over a maximizing intake strategy (MI). However, there is a lack of evidence whether grazers comply with the model predictions under field conditions. METHODOLOGY/FINDINGS We assessed diet selection of sh...

Nicole C. Roy1,2,3, Nadja Berger1,2,3, Emma N. Bermingham1,3, Warren C. McNabb2,3,4 and Janine M. Cooney3,5 1Food Nutrition & Health Team, AgResearch Grasslands, Palmerston North 2The Riddet Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North 3Nutrigenomics New Zealand 4AgResearch Grasslands, Palmerston North 5Biological Chemistry & Bioactives, Food Innovation, Plant & Food Research Ruakura, Hamilto...

Mountains, ocean currents, forests, and swamps have played an important role in regulating global climate for hundreds of millions of years, but the truly novel event of the Cenozoic was the evolution and expansion of grasslands, with their uniquely coevolved grasses and grazers. Neogene expansion of the climatic and geographic range of grasslands at the expense of woodlands is now revealed by ...

Leaching losses of nitrogen (N) from soil and atmospheric N deposition have led to widespread changes in plant community and microbial community composition, but our knowledge of the factors that determine ecosystem N retention is limited. A common feature of extensively managed, species-rich grasslands is that they have fungal-dominated microbial communities, which might reduce soil N losses a...