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1,102 results for “plant diversity”
Soil biota diversity and plant diversity both contributed to ecosystem stability in grasslands
<p><span>Understanding the effects of diversity on ecosystem stability in the context of global change has </span><span>become</span><span> an important goal of recent ecological research. </span><span>How</span><span>ever,</span><span> the </span><span>effects of </span><span>diversity at multiple scales and trophic levels </span><span>on</span><span> ecosystem stability across environmental gradients </span><span>remain</span><span> unclear. Here, we conducted a field survey of α-, β-, and γ-diversity of plants and soil biota (bacteria, fungi, and nematodes) and estimated </span><span>the </span><span>temporal ecosystem stability of </span><span>NDVI</span> <span>in</span><span> 132 plots on the Mongolian Plateau. After climate and soil environmental variables were controlled for, both the α- and β-diversity of plants and soil biota (mainly via nematodes) together with precipitation explained most variation in ecosystem stability. These findings evidence that the diversity of both soil biota and plants </span><span>contribute</span><span>s</span><span> to ecosystem stability</span><span>. Model</span><span> predictions of</span> <span>the</span><span> future effects of global changes on terrestrial ecosystem stability will require field observations of diversity of both </span><span>plants</span><span> and soil biota.</span></p>
Discrepancies between the drivers of alpha and beta plant diversity in arable field margins
<p><span>Field margins are major habitats for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in agricultural landscapes, but biotic homogenization of plant communities threatens their ecological and agronomic functions. Our objective is to assess the effects of field margin structure and long-term management of herbaceous layer over 20 years (1995–2015) on the taxonomic and functional α- and β-diversity, and the functional composition of herbaceous plant communities. In 2015, we surveyed 302 field margins in bocage landscapes of Brittany (France). Results were very similar between taxonomic and functional diversity but revealed discrepancies between α- and β-diversity. Deep ditches, mowing, and grazing increased α-diversity but did not affect β-diversity. Denser hedgerows had lower α-diversity than other field margins but contributed to β-diversity by harboring more unique sets of species or life strategies. Long-term herbicide spraying in field margins and cropping intensity in adjacent habitats did not affect α-diversity, but had more complex effects on β-diversity and selected for common weeds. Preservation of dense hedgerows and abandonment of herbicide spraying are key measures to prevent the establishment of common weeds and biotic homogenization in field margins. Above all, our study shows how important it is to go beyond α-diversity to make robust conservation and restoration decisions.</span></p>
Functional and taxonomic diversity indices of riparian plants in river networks
<p>1. The River Continuum Concept (RCC) predicts a gradual shift of organisms' functional adaptations along the longitudinal (upstream-downstream) gradient, as well as the maximization of the biotic diversity in mid-reaches. Although this theoretical framework was originally developed for stream macroinvertebrates, we tested whether such a pattern can be also observed in riparian plant communities.</p> <p>2. We studied the cover of plant species in riparian forests across two river networks. We analyzed the taxonomic and functional diversity indices, as well as community-weighted means of functional traits in relation to the plots' position in the catchments.</p> <p>3. The observed patterns were largely in line with the predictions of RCC. We discovered a significant decrease in the specific leaf area and an increase in the herbaceous plants' height in communities along a river gradient. There was also a shift in the dispersal syndromes, towards a higher importance of zoochory in the lower reaches.</p> <p>4. The functional richness and divergence displayed unimodal patterns of increasing values in the mid-reaches. The patterns of taxonomic diversity were similar, but some plots in the lowest reaches were more diverse than expected, forming an additional increase in diversity.</p> <p>5. The study shows that plant communities in natural riparian forests show high connectivity along the longitudinal gradient, which along with the environmental gradients creates patterns that are known from theoretical predictions.</p>
Data from: Multiple introductions, polyploidy and mixed reproductive strategies are linked to genetic diversity and structure in the most widespread invasive plant across Southern Ocean archipelagos
<p><span>Biological invasions in remote</span> <span>areas that experience low human activity provide unique opportunities to elucidate processes responsible for invasion success. Here we study the most widespread invasive plant species across the isolated islands of the Southern Ocean, the annual bluegrass, Poa annua. To </span><span>analyze</span><span> geographic variation in genome size, genetic diversity, and reproductive strategies, we sampled all major sub-Antarctic archipelagos in this region and generated microsatellite data for 470 individual plants representing 31 populations. We also estimated genome sizes for a subset of individuals using flow cytometry. Occasional events of island colonization are expected to result in high genetic structure among islands, overall low genetic diversity, and increased self-fertilization, but we show that this is not the case for Poa annua. Microsatellite data indicated low population genetic structure and lack of isolation-by-distance</span> <span>among the sub-Antarctic archipelagos we sampled, but high population structure within each archipelago. We identified high levels of genetic diversity, low clonality, and low selfing rates in sub-Antarctic P. annua populations (contrary to rates typical of continental populations). In turn, estimates of autogamy declined in populations as genetic diversity increased. Additionally, we found that most P. annua individuals are likely tetraploid and that only slight variation exists in genome size across the Southern Ocean. Our findings suggest multiple independent introductions of P. annua into the sub-Antarctic, which</span> <span>promoted the establishment of genetically diverse populations. Despite multiple introductions, the adoption of convergent reproductive strategies (outcrossing) happened independently in each major archipelago. The combination of polyploidy and a mixed reproductive strategy likely benefited P. annua in the Southern Ocean by increasing genetic diversity and its ability to cope with the novel environmental conditions.</span></p>
Patterns of frequency and density dependence are highly variable in diverse annual flowering plant communities
<p>Applications of ecological theory to natural communities often assume that competitive, negative density-dependent processes are the only type of interaction important for diversity maintenance. Recent advances suggest that positive interactions within trophic levels (e.g. plant-plant) may also affect plant coexistence. Though positive plant-plant interactions theoretically might result in positive or nonmonotonic frequency or density dependence (FD/DD), less is known about how commonly these patterns occur, or which ecological processes might result in such patterns in natural plant communities. In this study, we test for signals of variable frequency and density dependence in annual flowering plant communities in Western Australia and search for evidence that interactions among plants during flowering might induce positive or nonmonotonic FD/DD in flowering plants. Using four common annual wildflower species, we ask if plant fecundity exhibits positive or nonmonotonic FD/DD and if pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions during flowering change patterns of FD/DD relative to pollinator-independent plant interactions. Three species exhibited nonmonotonic (hump-shaped) density dependence, and only one species experienced strictly negative density dependence. Each species exhibited a different pattern of frequency dependence (positive, negative, weakly nonmonotonic, and no detectable frequency dependence). Pollinator-mediated plant-plant interactions during flowering induced both nonmonotonic density dependence and negative frequency dependence in one species. Importantly, the extent of variation in FD/DD observed in our study brings into question the dominance of negative density and frequency dependence in theory, suggesting instead that demographic responses of plants to their communities fall along a continuum of possible density- and frequency-dependent patterns.</p>
The data table of eleven invasive species in Hungary and Romania: Invasive species' cover, invasive species' traits, basic characteristics, trait composition, functional diversity indices and soil parameters of recipient plant communities
<p>We studied 11 widespread herbaceous invasive alien species of East-Central Europe and their 16 impact metrics (resident plant communities' ecological characteristics, trait composition, functional diversity, and soil parameters) by sampling invaded and similar, uninvaded sites (space-for-time substitution method). Our aim was to (1) investigate the detailed ecological impacts of invasive plants on native plant communities; (2) explore the type of cover-impact relationships across impact metrics and their consistency across species; (3) study whether the cover-impact relationship depends on functional traits of invasive species. We present the data table with the 11 invasive species: the status of the sites (invaded, uninvaded), the cover of invasive species at plot level, the invasive species traits (lifespan, height, SLA, seed mass, clonal spread, flowering duration), community characteristics (species richness and diversity, native vegetation cover and bare ground cover at plot level), trait composition of native plant communities (native vegetation height, CWM height, CWM SLA, CWM seed mass, CWM clonal spread), functional diversity (functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, functional distance, RaoQ) and soil properties (N, P, organic C, pH).</p>
Island area and remoteness shape plant and soil bacterial diversity through land use and biological invasion
<p>Biodiversity is declining dramatically due to human-driven land use change and biological invasion, but our knowledge of how such drivers influence plant and heterotroph diversity on island ecosystems remains limited. Historically island biogeography theory has focused solely on the direct effects of island size and remoteness on biodiversity, but these factors can also indirectly affect species gain and/or loss by impacting land use change and biological invasion. We built the structural equation model to explore the direct effects of island size and remoteness, and indirect effects of these factors via land use intensity and pinewood nematode invasion, on the diversity of plants and soil bacteria across 37 continental shelf islands in the largest land-bridge archipelago in eastern China.</p> <p>As expected we found that increasing island area directly promoted plant diversity. However, land use intensity increased with island area which also promoted plant diversity, and loss of pine forest by the pinewood nematode invasion increased with island remoteness which reduced plant diversity. Island remoteness only indirectly reduced plant diversity through increasing pine forest loss. Soil bacterial diversity was directly negatively impacted by island remoteness, and indirectly negatively impacted by island remoteness through increased soil electrical conductivity likely caused by greater salinity from sea spray. Furthermore, soil bacterial diversity was indirectly promoted by island area through increased plant diversity and decreased soil electrical conductivity, and indirectly reduced by pine forest loss through decreased plant diversity. Our findings highlight that island biogeography theory has relevance to understanding human impacts in the Anthropocene, and that there is a need to more explicitly recognize how island size and remoteness affect biodiversity not only directly, but also indirectly via their effects on human-induced drivers of biodiversity, such as land use change and biological invasion.</p>
Impacts of ecological restoration on the genetic diversity of plant species: A global meta-analysis
<p>1. In contrast to the depth of knowledge available for the enhancement of plant species diversity and ecosystem services through ecological restoration, our understanding of how ecological restoration impacts genetic diversity (GD) of plant species has not yet been synthesized.</p> <p>2. We performed a global meta-analysis to examine whether ecological restoration improved GD of plant species in restored populations. First, we compared the GD of restored populations with reference or degraded populations. Second, we explored whether the influence of ecological restoration on plant GD varies between species with different characteristics (life form and threat status), between different restoration strategies (active/passive, seeding/planting, mixture/non-mixture) or between different restoration times (<50 and ≥50 years; with an average of 29.3 years).</p> <p>3. The GD of restored populations was significantly lower (HE, 1.06%; PPB, 5.10%, and SWI, 4.95%) than in reference populations but was comparable to degraded populations. The inbreeding coefficient (FIS, the proportion by which the heterozygosity of an individual is reduced by inbreeding) was consistently comparable between restored populations and reference or degraded populations.</p> <p>4. Woody species but not herbs had significantly lower GD in restored populations than in reference populations. Forest but not grassland ecosystem had significantly lower GD in restored populations than in reference populations. Passive but not active restoration, seeding rather than planting, and mixing materials from different sources rather than using a single source, all significantly increased the GD of restored populations. When the restoration time was ≥50 years, in contrast to <50 years, GD was comparable between the restored and reference populations.</p> <p>5. Synthesis and applications. In general, ecological restoration did not significantly improve the GD of plant species compared to reference or degraded populations. This might be due in part to the relatively short restoration time. Using passive restoration, seeding, and mixed sources could significantly increase the GD of restored populations. We emphasize that GD should not be treated as a minor cobenefit of ecological restoration for other purposes and that the recovery of GD should be listed as a vital goal in future ecological restoration with plant species.</p>
Divergent responses of grassland productivity and plant diversity to intra-annual precipitation variability across climate regions: A global synthesis
<p><span>Global warming intensifies the hydrological cycle and may result in changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation events. Although the effects of changes in precipitation amount and inter-annual precipitation variability on terrestrial plant productivity and carbon sequestration have been well studied, how intra-annual precipitation variability affects terrestrial ecosystem function remains unclear. </span><span>Here, we synthesized field manipulative experiments from 71 publications to quantify the effects of intra-annual precipitation variability increases (IPVI) on community biomass and plant diversity in grasslands worldwide. </span><span>At the global scale, we found that IPVI generally increased grassland community aboveground biomass (AGB) by 6%, and decreased grass biomass and soil ammonium nitrogen by 12% and 31%, respectively. IPVI stimulated AGB, belowground biomass, and plant species richness in arid regions, but not changed them in humid regions. Changes in AGB under IPVI were related to changes in the biomass of plant functional groups, species richness, and soil moisture. Structural equation modelling demonstrated that that climate conditions (mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation) and background soil properties (soil sand content and soil organic carbon content) jointly regulated grassland AGB responses to IPVI across climate types.</span></p> <p><span>Synthesis: Overall, our study shows that grassland productivity and diversity may increase under IPVI in arid climates, and that humid grasslands may be highly resistant to the effects of IPVI. These findings have important implications for understanding ecosystem carbon cycling under global precipitation change scenarios.</span></p>
Plant productivity response to inter- and intra-symbiont diversity: mechanisms, manifestations, and meta-analyses
<p>Symbiont diversity can have large effects on plant growth but the mechanisms generating this relationship remain opaque. We identify three potential mechanisms underlying symbiont diversity-plant productivity relationships: provisioning with complementary resources, differential impact of symbionts of varying quality, and interference between symbionts. We connect these mechanisms to descriptive representations of plant responses to symbiont diversity, develop analytical tests differentiating these patterns, and test them using meta-analysis. We find generally positive symbiont diversity-plant productivity relationships, with relationship strength varying with symbiont type. Inoculation with symbionts from different guilds (e.g. mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobia) yields strongly positive relationships, consistent with complementary benefits from functionally distinct symbionts. In contrast, inoculation with symbionts from the same guild yields weak relationships, with co-inoculation not consistently generating greater growth than the best individual symbiont, consistent with sampling effects. The statistical approaches we outline, along with our conceptual framework, can be used to further explore plant productivity and community responses to symbiont diversity, and we identify critical needs for additional research to explore context-dependency in these relationships.</p>
Ecological consequences of plant genotypic diversity within a foundation plant, Spartina alterniflora, are pervasive but not universal across multiple stress gradients
<ol> <li>Plant genotypic diversity can influence population- and community-level processes, yet we have a limited understanding of how these effects vary across environmental gradients that are ubiquitous in nature. </li> <li>We conducted a 2-year field experiment manipulating plant (<em>Spartina</em> <em>alterniflora</em>) genotypic diversity across a natural stress gradient in tidal elevation, both with and without the addition of nutrients. </li> <li> <em>Spartina</em> diversity increased stem production, but the magnitude of this effect was reduced at both the most stressful and most benign endpoints of the combined elevation and nutrient gradient, consistent with recent species diversity studies. Complementarity among individuals likely underpins the observed benefit of <em>Spartina</em> diversity. </li> <li> <em>Spartina</em> diversity also affected the associated marsh community, with higher consumer (<em>Littoraria</em> <em>irrorata</em>) abundance in more diverse plots, owing to both greater <em>Spartina</em> density and increased variation in <em>Spartina</em> traits.</li> <li> <em>Synthesis</em>: The positive effects of <em>Spartina</em> diversity on population- and community-level responses under most environmental conditions highlights the ecological importance of plant genotypic diversity for the maintenance of function across the marsh landscape. </li> </ol>
Fitness and niche differences are both important in explaining responses of plant diversity to nutrient addition
<p><span>Plant species loss due to eutrophication is a common phenomenon in temperate perennial grasslands. It occurs in a non-random fashion and is usually explained by increased competitive size asymmetry between co-occurring winner (tall species with optima in productive habitats) and loser species (small-statured plants typical for unproductive habitats). It remains unclear why nutrient addition decreases diversity in communities consisting of losers only, whereas it has little effect on winner-only communities. Here, I used the framework of modern coexistence theory to explore fertilization-driven changes in fitness and niche differences between different combinations of field-identified winner (W) and loser (L) species. I experimentally estimated competition parameters for plant species pairs constructed from a pool of eight species, including pairs of species from the same (WW, LL) and different species categories (LW) grown for approximately two years in control and fertilized conditions. Concurrently, I also followed plant species diversity in mesocosm communities constructed from the same species pool (four-species communities including winners, losers, or both) exposed to control and nutrient addition. </span><span>I found that nutrient addition can reduce but, unexpectedly, also promote species coexistence depending on the type of species pairs. Whereas nutrient addition eroded coexistence of losers with winners, but also with other losers, treatment had the opposite effect on the persistence of winner species. Fertilization induced large fitness differences between species in loser-winner and loser-loser combinations, but had little effect on the fitness differences of species within the winner-winner combination. In addition, the persistence of winner pairs was promoted by larger niche differences compared to loser species, irrespective of soil nutrients. The differences in how nutrient addition modified coexistence at the pairwise level were reflected by differences in evenness of multispecies communities assembled from the corresponding species categories.</span> <span>These results suggest that the effect of eutrophication on plant species richness cannot simply be explained by an increased competitive asymmetry. To fully understand the effect of fertilization on the diversity of temperate grasslands, interspecific and intraspecific interactions should be explored while considering differences in species' ecological optima.</span></p>
Data from: Positive plant diversity effects on soil microbial drought resistance are linked to variation in labile carbon and microbial community structure
<p><span>Biodiversity loss and drought are substantially altering both above-and belowground terrestrial ecosystem functioning, but mechanistic understanding of plant diversity effects on the drought resistance of soil microbial biomass remains limited. </span></p> <p><span>We designed a mesocosm experiment to examine drought resistance of soil microbial biomass along a plant species richness gradient (five plant species richness levels based on old-field communities). We calculated resistance of microbial biomass to drought and recorded key belowground properties which may influence microbial resistance to drought (i.e., microbial diversity, microbial community structure, soil carbon stocks and root biomass). </span></p> <p><span>Plant species richness had a positive effect on microbial resistance to drought. Variation in microbial resistance to drought was linked to properties of the fungal community in ambient soil (Shannon diversity, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal richness and abundance) but not soil bacterial diversity. Moreover, microbial resistance to drought increased with increasing root biomass and dissolved organic carbon recorded under ambient conditions. </span></p> <p><span>These results highlight the importance of plant diversity for microbial biomass stability in our old-field study system with implications for biogeochemical cycling, and suggest that indirect effects of plant species richness on labile soil carbon and soil fungi may drive resistance of soil microbial biomass to drought. </span></p>
The positive effect of plant diversity on soil carbon depends on climate
<p>The three files contain all data (Data S1) and all R code to produce all tables and figures of the manuscript entitled "<strong>The positive effect of plant diversity on soil carbon depends on climate".</strong></p>
Data for: Increases in functional diversity of mountain plant communities is mainly driven by species turnover under climate change
<p><span>Warming in mountain regions is projected to be three times faster than the global average. Pronounced climate change will likely lead to species reshuffling in mountain plant communities and consequently change ecosystem resilience and functioning. Yet, little is known about</span><span> the role of inter- versus intraspecific changes of plant traits and their consequences for functional richness and evenness of mountain plant communities under climate change. </span></p> <p><span>We performed a downslope translocation experiment of intact plant-soil mesocosms from an alpine pasture and a subalpine grassland in the Swiss and Austrian Alps to simulate an abrupt shift in climate and removal of dispersal barriers. Translocated plant communities experienced warmer and dryer climatic conditions. </span><span>We found a considerable shift from resource conservative to resource acquisitive leaf-economy in the two climate change scenarios. However, shifts in leaf-economy were mainly attributable to species turnover, namely colonization by novel lowland species with trait expressions for a wider range of resource use. We also found an increase in vegetative height of the warmed and drought-affected alpine plant community, while trait plasticity to warming and drought was limited to few graminoid species of the subalpine plant community. </span><span>Our results highlight the contrast between the strong competitive potential of novel lowland species in quickly occupying available niche space and native species' lack of both the intraspecific trait variability and the plant functional trait expressions needed to increase functional richness under warming and drought. This is particularly important for the trailing range of many mountain species (i.e. subalpine zone) where upward moving lowland species are becoming more abundant and abiotic climate stressors are likely to become more frequent in the near future. </span><span>Our study emphasizes mountain plant communities' vulnerability to novel climates and biotic interactions under climate change and highlights graminoid species as potential winners of a warmer and dryer future.</span></p>
Climate and ant diversity explain the global distribution of ant-plant mutualisms
<p>Biotic interactions play an important role in shaping species geographic distributions and diversity patterns. However, the role of mutualistic interactions in shaping global plant diversity patterns remains poorly understood, particularly with respect to interactions with invertebrates. It is unclear how the nature of different mutualisms interacts with abiotic drivers and affects the distribution of mutualistic organisms. Here, we present a global-scale biogeographic analysis of three distinct ant-plant mutualisms, differentiating between plants bearing domatia, extrafloral nectaries (EFNs), and elaiosomes, based on comprehensive geographic distributions of ~19,000 flowering plants and ~13,000 ant species. Domatia and extrafloral nectaries involve indirect plant defences provided by ants, while elaiosomes attract ants to disperse seeds. Our results reveal distinct biogeographic patterns of different ant-plant mutualisms, with domatium- and EFN-bearing plant diversity decreasing sharply from the equator towards the poles, while elaiosome-bearing plants prevail at mid-latitudes. Present climate, especially mean annual temperature and precipitation, emerge as the strongest predictors of ant-associated plant diversity. In hot and moist regions, typically the tropics, the representation of EFN-bearing plants increases with the proportion of potential ant partners while domatium-bearing plants show no correlation with ants. In dry regions, plants with elaiosomes are strongly linked to interacting ant seed dispersers. Our results suggest that ants in combination with climate drive the spatial variation of plants bearing domatia, extrafloral nectaries, and elaiosomes, highlighting the importance of mutualistic interactions for understanding plant biogeography.</p>
Data from: Soil nutrient heterogeneity alters productivity and diversity of experimental plant communities under multiple global change factors
<p>Plant communities in nature are often challenged by multiple global change factors (GCFs) and also ubiquitously encountered with soil nutrient heterogeneity. So far, however, we know little about the interactive effect of multiple GCFs and soil nutrient heterogeneity on plant communities.</p> <p>We conducted an outdoor mesocosm experiment in which a plant community was either grown in heterogeneous soils consisting of high- and low-nutrient patches, or in homogeneous soils where the same amount of nutrients was evenly distributed. These plant communities were exposed to none (control), single, or a combination of two or four GCFs (i.e., drought, nitrogen deposition, microplastic and cadmium).</p> <p>Biomass of the plant community exposed to drought and nitrogen deposition were greater in heterogeneous than in homogeneous soils, but evenness of the plant community exposed to microplastics was lower. Increasing the number of GCFs increased community biomass more in heterogeneous than in homogeneous soils, but it generally reduced community evenness, independent of soil nutrient heterogeneity. These contrasting responses were related to changing competitive hierarchies and root foraging responses under different treatments.</p> <p>Our results suggest that soil nutrient heterogeneity can alter community productivity and diversity via changing competitive interactions of the component species, depending on both the identity and the number of GCFs acting on the community. These results have important implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under rapid and complex ongoing global changes.</p>
Data from: Plant-derived environmental DNA complements diversity estimates from traditional arthropod monitoring methods but outperforms them detecting plant-arthropod interactions
<p>Our limited knowledge about the ecological drivers of global arthropod decline highlights the urgent need for more effective biodiversity monitoring approaches. Monitoring of arthropods is commonly performed using passive trapping devices, which reliably recover diverse communities, but provide little ecological information on the sampled taxa. Especially the manifold interactions of arthropods with plants are barely understood. A promising strategy to overcome this shortfall is environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding from plant material on which arthropods have left DNA traces through direct or indirect interactions. However, the accuracy of this approach has not been sufficiently tested. In four experiments, we exhaustively test the comparative performance of plant-derived eDNA from surface washes of plants and homogenized plant material against traditional monitoring approaches. We show that the recovered communities of plant-derived eDNA and traditional approaches only partly overlap, with eDNA recovering various additional taxa. This suggests eDNA as a useful complementary tool to traditional monitoring. Despite the differences in recovered taxa, estimates of community α- and β-diversity between both approaches are well correlated, highlighting the utility of eDNA as a broad scale tool for community monitoring. Last, eDNA outperforms traditional approaches in the recovery of plant-specific arthropod communities. Unlike traditional monitoring, eDNA revealed fine-scaled community differentiation between individual plants and even within plant compartments. Especially specialized herbivores are better recovered with eDNA. Our results highlight the value of plant derived eDNA analysis for large-scale biodiversity assessments that include information about community level interactions.</p>
Artificial light at night (ALAN) decreases plant diversity and performance in experimental grassland communities – Data on species biomass and traits
<p>Artificial light at night (ALAN) affects many areas of the world and is increasing globally. To date, there has been limited and inconsistent evidence regarding the consequences of ALAN on plant communities as well as the fitness of their constituent species. ALAN could be beneficial for plants as they need light as an energy source, but they also need darkness for regeneration and growth. We created model communities composed of 16 plant species sown, exposed to a gradient of ALAN ranging from 'moonlight only' to conditions like situations typically found directly underneath a streetlamp. We measured plant community composition and its production (biomass), as well as functional traits of three plant species from different functional groups (grasses, herbs, legumes) in two separate harvests. We found that biomass was reduced by 33% in the highest ALAN treatment compared to the control, Shannon diversity decreased by 43% and Evenness by 34% in the first harvest. Some species failed to establish in the second harvest. Specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content and leaf hairiness responded to ALAN. These responses suggest that plant communities will be sensitive to increasing ALAN, and they flag a need for plant conservation activities that consider impending ALAN scenarios.</p>
Dataset: Plant-mediated effects of fire and fragmentation drive plant–pollinator interaction β-diversity in fire-dependent pine savannas
<p>Interaction β-diversity is a measure essential for understanding and conserving species interactions and ecosystem functioning. Interaction β-diversity explains the variation in species interactions across spatial and temporal gradients, resulting from species turnover or interaction rewiring. Each component of interaction β-diversity has different ecological implications and practical consequences. While interaction β-diversity due to species turnover is related to assembly processes and fragmentation, rewiring can support high biodiversity and confer resilience to ecological networks. However, it is unclear whether both components respond to the same or different ecological drivers. Here, we assessed the ecological drivers of plant–pollinator interaction β-diversity and its components across 24 sites in 9 longleaf pine (LLP) savannas in north and central Florida. We evaluated the effects of flowering plant composition and flower abundance, vegetation, fire regime, soil moisture, terrain characteristics, climate, spatial context and geographic location. We used path analysis to evaluate the drivers of spatial interaction β-diversity and its main components. We then used generalized linear mixed models to assess the temporal patterns of spatial β-diversity among sites within preserves. We found that plant–pollinator networks in LLP savannas are highly variable across space and time, mainly due to species turnover and possibly in response to abiotic gradients and dispersal boundaries. Flower abundance and flowering plant composition, geographic location, fire seasonality, soil moisture, and landscape context were the main drivers of plant–pollinator β-diversity, highlighting the role of fire management and habitat connectivity in preserving plant–pollinator networks.</p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.