Publication Date:
2011-09-24
Description:
For more than 30 years, the relationship between net primary productivity and species richness has generated intense debate in ecology about the processes regulating local diversity. The original view, which is still widely accepted, holds that the relationship is hump-shaped, with richness first rising and then declining with increasing productivity. Although recent meta-analyses questioned the generality of hump-shaped patterns, these syntheses have been criticized for failing to account for methodological differences among studies. We addressed such concerns by conducting standardized sampling in 48 herbaceous-dominated plant communities on five continents. We found no clear relationship between productivity and fine-scale (meters(-2)) richness within sites, within regions, or across the globe. Ecologists should focus on fresh, mechanistic approaches to understanding the multivariate links between productivity and richness.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Adler, Peter B -- Seabloom, Eric W -- Borer, Elizabeth T -- Hillebrand, Helmut -- Hautier, Yann -- Hector, Andy -- Harpole, W Stanley -- O'Halloran, Lydia R -- Grace, James B -- Anderson, T Michael -- Bakker, Jonathan D -- Biederman, Lori A -- Brown, Cynthia S -- Buckley, Yvonne M -- Calabrese, Laura B -- Chu, Cheng-Jin -- Cleland, Elsa E -- Collins, Scott L -- Cottingham, Kathryn L -- Crawley, Michael J -- Damschen, Ellen I -- Davies, Kendi F -- DeCrappeo, Nicole M -- Fay, Philip A -- Firn, Jennifer -- Frater, Paul -- Gasarch, Eve I -- Gruner, Daniel S -- Hagenah, Nicole -- Hille Ris Lambers, Janneke -- Humphries, Hope -- Jin, Virginia L -- Kay, Adam D -- Kirkman, Kevin P -- Klein, Julia A -- Knops, Johannes M H -- La Pierre, Kimberly J -- Lambrinos, John G -- Li, Wei -- MacDougall, Andrew S -- McCulley, Rebecca L -- Melbourne, Brett A -- Mitchell, Charles E -- Moore, Joslin L -- Morgan, John W -- Mortensen, Brent -- Orrock, John L -- Prober, Suzanne M -- Pyke, David A -- Risch, Anita C -- Schuetz, Martin -- Smith, Melinda D -- Stevens, Carly J -- Sullivan, Lauren L -- Wang, Gang -- Wragg, Peter D -- Wright, Justin P -- Yang, Louie H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Sep 23;333(6050):1750-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1204498.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main, Logan, UT 84322, USA. peter.adler@usu.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21940895" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Africa
;
Australia
;
*Biodiversity
;
*Biomass
;
China
;
*Ecosystem
;
Europe
;
Models, Biological
;
Models, Statistical
;
North America
;
Plant Development
;
Plant Physiological Processes
;
*Plants
;
Regression Analysis
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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