Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands
The bidirectional relationship between plant species richness and community biomass is often variable and poorly resolved in natural grassland ecosystems, impeding progress in predicting impacts of environmental changes. Most biological communities have long-tailed species abundance distributions (f...
| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/22720 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02701-y https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02701-y |
| _version_ | 1855486998013280256 |
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| author | Zhang, Pengfei Seabloom, Eric William Foo, Jasmine MacDougall, Andrew S. Harpole, William Stanley Adler, Peter B. Hautier, Yann Eisenhauer, Nico Spohn, Marie Bakker, Jonathan D. Peri, Pablo Luis Borer, Elizabeth T. |
| author_browse | Adler, Peter B. Bakker, Jonathan D. Borer, Elizabeth T. Eisenhauer, Nico Foo, Jasmine Harpole, William Stanley Hautier, Yann MacDougall, Andrew S. Peri, Pablo Luis Seabloom, Eric William Spohn, Marie Zhang, Pengfei |
| author_facet | Zhang, Pengfei Seabloom, Eric William Foo, Jasmine MacDougall, Andrew S. Harpole, William Stanley Adler, Peter B. Hautier, Yann Eisenhauer, Nico Spohn, Marie Bakker, Jonathan D. Peri, Pablo Luis Borer, Elizabeth T. |
| author_sort | Zhang, Pengfei |
| collection | INTA Digital |
| description | The bidirectional relationship between plant species richness and community biomass is often variable and poorly resolved in natural grassland ecosystems, impeding progress in predicting impacts of environmental changes. Most biological communities have long-tailed species abundance distributions (for example, biomass, cover, number of individuals), a general property that may provide predictive power for species richness and community biomass. Here we show mathematical relationships between community characteristics and the abundance of dominant species arising from long-tailed distributions and test these predictions using observational and experimental data from 76 grassland sites across 6 continents. We find that community biomass provides little predictive ability for community richness, consistent with previous findings. By contrast, the relative abundance of dominant species quantitatively predicts species richness, whereas their absolute abundance quantitatively predicts community biomass under both ambient and altered environmental conditions, as expected mathematically. These results are robust to the type of abundance measure used. Three types of simulated data further show the generality of these results. Our integrative framework, arising from a few dominant species and mathematical properties of species abundance distributions, fills a persistent gap in our ability to predict community richness and biomass under ambient and anthropogenically altered conditions. |
| format | Artículo |
| id | INTA22720 |
| institution | Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA -Argentina) |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Springer Nature |
| publisherStr | Springer Nature |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | INTA227202025-06-19T10:28:34Z Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands Zhang, Pengfei Seabloom, Eric William Foo, Jasmine MacDougall, Andrew S. Harpole, William Stanley Adler, Peter B. Hautier, Yann Eisenhauer, Nico Spohn, Marie Bakker, Jonathan D. Peri, Pablo Luis Borer, Elizabeth T. Pastures Biomass Dominant Species Abundance Pastizales Biomasa Especies Dominantes Abundancia Plant Richness Community Biomass Impacts of Environmental Changes Community Richness Riqueza Vegetal Biomasa Comunitaria Impactos de los Cambios Ambientales Riqueza de la Comunidad The bidirectional relationship between plant species richness and community biomass is often variable and poorly resolved in natural grassland ecosystems, impeding progress in predicting impacts of environmental changes. Most biological communities have long-tailed species abundance distributions (for example, biomass, cover, number of individuals), a general property that may provide predictive power for species richness and community biomass. Here we show mathematical relationships between community characteristics and the abundance of dominant species arising from long-tailed distributions and test these predictions using observational and experimental data from 76 grassland sites across 6 continents. We find that community biomass provides little predictive ability for community richness, consistent with previous findings. By contrast, the relative abundance of dominant species quantitatively predicts species richness, whereas their absolute abundance quantitatively predicts community biomass under both ambient and altered environmental conditions, as expected mathematically. These results are robust to the type of abundance measure used. Three types of simulated data further show the generality of these results. Our integrative framework, arising from a few dominant species and mathematical properties of species abundance distributions, fills a persistent gap in our ability to predict community richness and biomass under ambient and anthropogenically altered conditions. EEA Santa Cruz, INTA Fil: Zhang, Pengfei. Lanzhou University. College of Ecology. State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems; China. Fil: Zhang, Pengfei. University of Minnesota. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Estados Unidos Fil: Seabloom, Eric William. University of Minnesota. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Estados Unidos Fil: Foo, Jasmine. University of Minnesota. School of Mathematics; Estados Unidos Fil: MacDougall, Andrew S. University of Guelph. Department of Integrative Biology; Canadá. Fil: Harpole, William Stanley. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv); Alemania Fil: Harpole, William Stanley. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ. Department of Physiological Diversity; Alemania Fil: Harpole, William Stanley. Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg; Alemania Fil: Adler, Peter B. Utah State University. Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center; Estaodos Unidos Fil: Hautier, Yann. Utrecht University. Department of Biology. Ecology and Biodiversity Group; Países Bajos Fil: Eisenhauer, Nico. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research; Alemania Fil: Eisenhauer, Nico. Leipzig University. Institute of Biology; Alemania Fil: Spohn, Marie. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Department of Soil and Environment; Suecia Fil: Bakker, Jonathan D. University of Washington. School of Environmental and Forest Sciences; Estados Unidos Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; Argentina. Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fil: Borer, Elizabeth T. University of Minnesota. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Estados Unidos 2025-06-19T10:11:47Z 2025-06-19T10:11:47Z 2025-06 info:ar-repo/semantics/artículo info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/22720 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02701-y Zhang P.; Seabloom E.W.; Foo J.; Macdougall A.S.; Harpole W.S.; Adler P.B.; Hautier Y.; Eisenhauer N.; Muraina T.O.; Spohn M.; Bakker J.D.; (…); Peri P.L.; et al. (2025) Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands. Nature Ecology & Evolution 9: 924-936. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02701-y 2397-334X (online) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02701-y eng info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) application/pdf Springer Nature Nature Ecology & Evolution 9 : 924-936. (May 2025) |
| spellingShingle | Pastures Biomass Dominant Species Abundance Pastizales Biomasa Especies Dominantes Abundancia Plant Richness Community Biomass Impacts of Environmental Changes Community Richness Riqueza Vegetal Biomasa Comunitaria Impactos de los Cambios Ambientales Riqueza de la Comunidad Zhang, Pengfei Seabloom, Eric William Foo, Jasmine MacDougall, Andrew S. Harpole, William Stanley Adler, Peter B. Hautier, Yann Eisenhauer, Nico Spohn, Marie Bakker, Jonathan D. Peri, Pablo Luis Borer, Elizabeth T. Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title | Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title_full | Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title_fullStr | Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title_short | Dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| title_sort | dominant species predict plant richness and biomass in global grasslands |
| topic | Pastures Biomass Dominant Species Abundance Pastizales Biomasa Especies Dominantes Abundancia Plant Richness Community Biomass Impacts of Environmental Changes Community Richness Riqueza Vegetal Biomasa Comunitaria Impactos de los Cambios Ambientales Riqueza de la Comunidad |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/22720 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02701-y https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02701-y |
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