interrupting the processes which control ecosystem resources has dramatic impacts on the rangeland conditions. to protect ecosystems and landscape, it needs to understand the ecosystem processes which regulate the ecosystem resources. as main components of ecosystems, patches and inter-patches play important roles in energy and materials cascade. ecologically, functional parameters such as stab...

Interrupting the processes which control ecosystem resources has dramatic impacts on the rangeland conditions. To protect ecosystems and landscape, it needs to understand the ecosystem processes which regulate the ecosystem resources. As main components of ecosystems, patches and inter-patches play important roles in energy and materials cascade. Ecologically, functional parameters such as stab...

Ecosystem analysis has established nutrient cycling as an important area of ecology involving biological, chemical, and geological interactions. Studying the flow of elements through ecosystems provides us with a tool for understanding the functioning of ecosystems. For example, if an ecosystem component has a rapid flux of elements through it, or if it stores large amounts of an element, that ...

Figure 1. Nutrients may be tied up in bryophytes for decades, or recycle within months, in forests with abundant bryophytes, as in this forest with Isothecium myosuroides. Photo by Michael Lüth. Few quantitative studies have addressed the role of bryophytes in ecosystem nutrient cycling. Nevertheless, bryophytes may play a significant role in N retention and release in the ecosystem (Figure 1)....

Nutrients are elements or compounds that are essential for the growth and survival of plants. Plants require large amounts of nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg), but only small amounts of others such as boron (B), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and chlorine (Cl) (micronutrients)...

Ecologists hold two views about the role of herbivory in ecosystem dynamics. First, from a food web perspective in population/community ecology, consumption by herbivores reduces plant abundance. Second, from a nutrient cycling perspective in ecosystem ecology, herbivory sometimes slows down cycling, which decreases plant abundance, but at other times speeds up cycling, which possibly increases...

Recent research shows that nutrient fluxes are often pulsed In tropical forests, and that pulsed versus gradual inputs have different effects on the fates of nutrients in the ecosystem. Synchrony of nutrient mineralization with plant uptake can lower competition between microbes and plants for limiting nutrients while maintaining tight nutrient cycling, whereas asynchrony can lead to losses of ...

Legume cover crops have various important effects on nutrient cycling in tropical fruit tree production: they (i) fix atmospheric N2 and may amend the soil and trees with N, (ii) recycle nutrients, and (iii) affect soil nutrient availability. Aboveground N accumulation usually is very large in legume cover crops as seen from Pueraria phaseoloides being 8 to 14 times higher than in intercropped ...

This paper provides a conceptual framework for increasing our understanding of the relationships between plant resistance to insect herbivores and insect herbivore influences on ecosystem nutrient cycling and succession. For a given plant species, adequate nutrient/light availability favors establishment and productivity; small insect herbivore populations regulated by plant biochemistry stimul...