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440 results for “community changes”

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dryad36/100

Changing patterns of nest predation and predator communities along a tropical elevation gradient

Tropical montane communities host the world's highest beta diversity of birds, a phenomenon usually attributed to community turnover caused by changes in biotic and abiotic factors along elevation gradients. Yet, empirical data on most biotic factors are lacking. Nest predation is thought to be especially important because it appears to be common and can change selective pressures underlying life history traits, which can alter competitive interactions. We monitored 2,538 nests, 338 of which had known nest predators, to evaluate if nest predation changes along a tropical elevational gradient. We found that nest predation decreased with elevation, reflecting the loss of lowland predators that do not tolerate colder climates. We found different "super" nest predators at each elevation that accounted for a high percentage of events, suggesting that selection pressures exerted by nest predator communities may be less diffuse than has been hypothesized, at least for birds nesting in the understory.

opencc-zeroFeb 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: The interacting influences of competition, composition, and diversity determine successional community change

Community change is one of the few constants in nature, and the balance of mechanisms influencing this change is central to understanding the structure and functioning of communities and ecosystems. Newly established communities undergo succession and can change in diversity and composition as local environmental change, interspecific interactions, and immigration play out over time. Understanding the influence of initial conditions and priority effects (long-term consequences of the initial community composition and species identity) on community change is critically important for both evaluating ecological theory and predicting restoration outcomes. Here I evaluate how initial experimental conditions in 2012, such as initial sown species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and early biomass production, along with priority effects caused by the identity of sown species, influence subsequent plant community composition and the number of colonizing species after nine years of uninterrupted natural colonization. I found that sown phylogenetic diversity (measured as mean pairwise distance) indirectly affected the number of colonizing species by increasing biomass production early on and plots with more biomass in 2012 were colonized by fewer species. Individual species influenced the number of colonizing species with taller species reducing the number of colonists and some shorter species increasing the number of colonists. Synthesis: Taken together, these results indicate that initial composition influences the number of colonizing species via community-wide competition. These findings suggest that restoration outcomes can be greatly influenced by decisions about sown species composition and early management practices.

opencc-zeroApr 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Grazing animals have contrasting effects on foliar pathogens by changing plant community characteristics

Large herbivore grazing has substantial effects on plant community structure and ecosystem functioning, however, the impacts of grazing on plant diseases remain poorly understood. Here, we used a grazing experimentand a removal experiment manipulating plant density and litter biomass in northeast China to evaluate how large vertebrate herbivores (cattle and sheep) affect different foliar fungal diseases (biotrophs and necrotrophs). We found that cattle grazing significantly reduced pathogen load, of both biotrophs and necrotrophs, while sheep grazing increased biotrophic pathogen load, but did not affect necrotrophic pathogen load. Mechanistically, grazing effects were indirect and mediated by changing plant community characteristics. Moreover, litter biomass play an important role in affecting necrotrophs and by reducing litter build up the cattle reduced necrotrophic pathogen infection. Our results demonstrate that cattle and sheep grazing have contrasting impacts on pathogen load. This finding has important implications for improving disease management through grazing regimes in grassland systems.

opencc-zeroMay 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Data for: Antibiotic-degrading resistance changes bacterial community structure via species-specific responses

Some bacterial resistance mechanisms degrade antibiotics, potentially protecting neighbouring susceptible cells from antibiotic exposure. We do not yet understand how such effects influence bacterial communities of more than two species, which are typical in nature. Here, we used experimental multispecies communities to test the effects of clinically important pOXA-48-plasmid-encoded resistance on community-level responses to antibiotics. We found that resistance in one community member reduced antibiotic inhibition of other species, but some benefitted more than others. Further experiments with supernatants and pure-culture growth assays showed the susceptible species profiting most from detoxification were those that grew best at degraded antibiotic concentrations (greater than zero, but lower than the starting concentration). This pattern was also observed on agar surfaces, and the same species also showed relatively high survival compared to most other species during the initial high-antibiotic phase. By contrast, we found no evidence of a role for higher-order interactions or horizontal plasmid transfer in community-level responses to detoxification in our experimental communities. Our findings suggest carriage of an antibiotic-degrading resistance mechanism by one species can drastically alter community-level responses to antibiotics, and the identities of the species that profit most from antibiotic detoxification are predicted by their intrinsic ability to survive and grow at changing antibiotic concentrations.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Data for: A size-based perspective on the decoupling between compositional and functional changes in planktonic communities

Recent studies have shown a decoupling in the way community composition and functions respond to environmental changes. A common pattern observed is that aggregated functions at the community level are more stable than community composition, which is likely the result of functional compensatory dynamics driven by interspecific differences in response to environmental change. However, the mechanisms by which these patterns emerge remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated in a mesocosm experiment for four weeks the compositional and functional responses of edible phytoplankton (<64µm) and cladoceran zooplankton communities to climate warming (a constant increase of +3.5°C plus heat wave) and eutrophication (nutrient additions) from a size-based perspective. Our results show that warming increases small-sized taxa and decreases large-sized taxa within both phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition. We found that such opposite responses of different-sized taxa contributed to the stability of planktonic community functions and thereby resulted in a decoupling between compositional and functional changes. We also found that nutrient additions increased the abundance of all-sized algal taxa, while phytoplankton community function remained stable. Nutrient additions did not alter the zooplankton community, neither compositionally nor functionally. Under the combined stress of warming and nutrient additions, the compositional and functional responses of planktonic communities were mainly driven by warming. In a broader perspective, our findings reveal a size-dependent compensation mechanism and suggest that functional stability relies on compensatory effects among different-sized taxa, and it is therefore important that communities host a large range of taxa differing in size to withstand an increasingly more variable environment in the future.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Data for: Increases in functional diversity of mountain plant communities is mainly driven by species turnover under climate change

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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Changes in nitrogen and phosphorus availability driven by secondary succession in temperate forests shape soil fungal communities and function

Soil fungal community plays an important role in forest ecosystems, and forest secondary succession is a crucial driver of soil fungal community. However, the driving factors of fungal community and function during temperate forest succession and their potential impact on succession processes are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of the soil fungal community in three temperate forest secondary successional stages (shrublands, coniferous forests, and deciduous broadleaf forests) using high-throughput DNA sequencing coupled with functional prediction via the FUNGuild database. We found that fungal community richness, α-diversity, and evenness decreased significantly during the succession process. Soil available phosphorus and nitrate nitrogen decreased significantly after initial succession occurred, and redundancy analysis showed that both were significant predictors of soil fungal community structure. Among functional groups, fungal saprotrophs as well as pathotrophs represented by plant pathogens were significantly enriched in the early-successional stage, while fungal symbiotrophs represented by ectomycorrhiza were significantly increased in the late-successional stage. The abundance of both saprotroph and pathotroph fungal guilds was positively correlated with soil nitrate nitrogen and available phosphorus content. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were negatively correlated with nitrate nitrogen and available phosphorus content and positively correlated with ammonium nitrogen content. These results indicated that the dynamics of fungal community and function reflected the changes in nitrogen and phosphorus availability caused by the secondary succession of temperate forests. The fungal plant pathogen accumulated in the early-successional stage and ectomycorrhizal fungi accumulated in the late-successional stage may have a potential role in promoting forest succession. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the response of soil fungal communities to the secondary forest succession process and highlight the importance of fungal communities during temperate forest succession.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

zenodo36/100

Soil microbial community, dissolved organic matter and nutrient cycling interactions change along an elevation gradient in subtropical China

This table contains data on soil dissolved organic matter at different elevations in Wuyi Mountain, China, which is attached to the manuscript submitted to Journal of Environmental Management (Manuscript ID:JEMA-D-23-01912).

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2022View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: Soil nutrient heterogeneity alters productivity and diversity of experimental plant communities under multiple global change factors

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. 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). 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. 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.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Data for: Lipid biomarkers recording marine microbial community structure changes through the Frasnian‐Famennian mass extinction event

This dataset contains data for a research article published on Geobiology. The article is entitled " Lipid biomarkers recording marine microbial community structure changes through the Frasnian‐Famennian mass extinction event". This study aims to reconstruct changes in the marine microbial community structure through the Late Devonian Frasnian‐Famennian (F‐F) transition. We performed a multiproxy investigation on a drill core of the Upper Devonian New Albany Shale from the Illinois Basin (western Kentucky, USA). Detailed information regarding the data collection, analysis, and interpretation can be found in the following paper: Chen J., Hogancamp N., Lu M., Ikejiri T., Malina N., Ojeda A., Sun Y., Lu Y. 2023. Lipid Biomarkers Recording Marine Microbial Community Structure Changes Through the Frasnian‐Famennian Mass Extinction Event. Geobiology <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12568">https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12568</a>

opencc-zeroAug 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Slow soil enzyme recovery following invasive tree removal through gradual changes in bacterial and fungal communities

Biological invasions of plants have profound effects on ecosystem functioning by directly and indirectly altering soil microbiota, especially when invasive plants co-invade with their associated microbiomes. Ecosystem functions may recover slowly following invader removal, with implications for restoration. We investigated the recovery of soil ecosystem function (measured as soil enzymes) following the removal, at different densities and times, of invasive Pinus spp. in New Zealand, and how different enzymatic activities responded to pine legacies. Enzymatic activities were driven by pine legacies via both abiotic (soil nutrients) and biotic (fungi and bacteria) soil properties, with different enzymes showing distinct patterns. The activity of the enzymes cellobiohydrolase (cellulose degrading), β-glucosidase (cellulose degrading), N-acetyl-glucosaminidase (chitin degrading), laccase (lignin oxidising) and acid phosphatase (organic phosphate hydrolysing) were influenced by time since pine removal and by pine density at removal via effects on biotic communities. In comparison, Mn-peroxidase (lignin oxidising) was positively correlated with density of pines at removal and was negatively correlated with time since removal and was only influenced by fungal communities. Synthesis. The recovery of soil enzymatic function following invasive species removal is slow, and dependent on pine legacies through the gradual changes in fungal and bacterial communities. The cascading effects of these changes suggest potential implications for the success of future plant establishment and restoration of co-invaded ecosystems.

opencc-zeroAug 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Changes in the acoustic structure of Australian bird communities along a habitat complexity gradient

Avian vocalizations have evolved in response to a variety of abiotic and biotic selective pressures. While there is some support for signal convergence in similar habitats that is attributed to adaptation to the acoustic properties of the environment (the 'acoustic adaptation hypothesis', AAH), there is also evidence for character displacement as a result of competition for signal space among coexisting species (the 'acoustic niche partitioning hypothesis'). We explored the acoustic space of avian assemblages distributed along six different habitat types (from herbaceous habitats to warm rainforests) in southeastern Queensland, Australia. We employed three acoustic diversity indices (acoustic richness, evenness, and divergence) to characterize the signal space. In addition, we quantified the phylogenetic and morphological structure (in terms of both body mass and beak size) of each community. Acoustic parameters showed a moderately low phylogenetic signal, indicating labile evolution. Although, we did not find meaningful differences in acoustic diversity indices among habitat categories, there was a significant relationship between the regularity component (evenness) and vegetation height indicating that acoustic signals are more evenly distributed in dense habitats. After accounting for differences in species richness, the volume of acoustic space (i.e., acoustic richness) decreased as the level of phylogenetic and morphological resemblance among species in a given community increased. Additionally, we found a significantly negative relationship between acoustic divergence and divergence in body mass indicating that the less different species are in their body mass, the more different their songs are likely to be. This implies the existence of acoustic niche partitioning at the community level. Overall, while we found mixed support for the AAH, our results suggest that community-level effects may play a role in structuring acoustic signals within avian communities in this region. This study shows that signal diversity estimated by diversity metrics of community ecology based on basic acoustic parameters can provide additional insight into the structure of animal vocalizations.

opencc-zeroSep 2022View details →

ClinicalTrials.gov36/100

Using Digital Health, Financial Incentives, and Community Health Worker Support to Change Health Behavior

ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT03939793. IPD Sharing: NO. Countries: 1. Publications: 1.

closedIPD-NOFeb 2026View details →

dryad36/100