The spatiotemporal stability of plant diversity is disconnected from biomass stability in response to human activities in a South American temperate grassland.
Sofía Campana, Pedro M Tognetti, Juan Alberti, Pamela Graff, Cecilia D Molina, María Celeste Silvoso, Laura Yahdjian
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Human activities alter biomass, nutrient availability, and species dominance in grasslands, impacting their richness, composition, and biomass production. Stability (invariability in time or space) can inform the predictability of plant communities in response to human activities. However, this measure has been simplistically analyzed for temporal (interannual) changes in live biomass, disregarding their spatial stability and the temporal stability of other plant community attributes. Moreover, the simultaneous analysis of temporal and spatial stabilities of plant communities has been scarcely assessed. Here, we test how biomass removal and nutrient addition simultaneously modify the temporal and spatial stabilities of plant richness (α diversity), composition dissimilarity (β diversity), aboveground live biomass, and the role of plant species dominance in the stability responses. We conducted a factorial experiment of biomass removal (grazing, mowing, or intact -no removal-) and nutrient addition (unfertilized or fertilized with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) in a temperate grassland of Argentina, South America. We replicated the experiment in 6 blocks over 10 years to estimate the temporal and spatial stabilities of the plant community. The spatiotemporal stability of plant richness and composition dissimilarity decreased in the intact grassland, while the temporal stability of live biomass increased, compared to the grazed and mowed grasslands. Nutrient addition reduced the spatiotemporal stability of live biomass and the spatial stability of plant richness. The stabilities of species richness as well as that of composition dissimilarity were negatively associated with plant dominance, while the live biomass stability was not. Our results suggest that simplifying the effect of biomass removal and nutrient addition on grassland stability is not feasible, as plant diversity stability responses are not surrogates for biomass stability. The contrasting spatiotemporal stability responses of plant diversity and biomass represent a step forward in predicting human activities' impact over time and across space in temperate grasslands.
期刊介绍：
The Science of the Total Environment is an international journal dedicated to scientific research on the environment and its interaction with humanity. It covers a wide range of disciplines and seeks to publish innovative, hypothesis-driven, and impactful research that explores the entire environment, including the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere.
The journal's updated Aims & Scope emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary environmental research with broad impact. Priority is given to studies that advance fundamental understanding and explore the interconnectedness of multiple environmental spheres. Field studies are preferred, while laboratory experiments must demonstrate significant methodological advancements or mechanistic insights with direct relevance to the environment.
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