ALBERT

Description: Well defined productivity-precipitation relationships of ecosystems are needed as benchmarks for the validation of land-models used for future projections. The productivity-precipitation relationship may be studied in two ways: the spatial approach relates differences in productivity to those in precipitation among sites along a precipitation gradient (the spatial fit, with a steeper slope); the temporal approach relates inter-annual productivity changes to variation in precipitation within sites (the temporal fits, with flatter slopes). Precipitation-reduction experiments in natural ecosystems represent a complement to the fits, because they can reduce precipitation below the natural range and are thus well suited to study potential effects of climate drying. Here, we analyze the effects of dry treatments in eleven multi-year precipitation-manipulation experiments, focusing on changes in the temporal fit. We expected that structural changes in the dry treatments would occur in some experiments, thereby reducing the intercept of the temporal fit and displacing the productivity-precipitation relationship downward the spatial fit. The majority of experiments (72%) showed that dry treatments did not alter the temporal fit. This implies that current temporal fits are to be preferred over the spatial fit to benchmark land-model projections of productivity under future climate within the precipitation ranges covered by the experiments. Moreover, in two experiments, the intercept of the temporal fit unexpectedly increased due to mechanisms that reduced either water- or nutrient losses. The expected decrease of the intercept was observed in only one experiment, and only when distinguishing between the late and the early phases of the experiment. This implies that we currently do not know at which precipitation-reduction level or at which experimental duration structural changes will start to alter ecosystem productivity. Our study highlights the need for experiments with multiple, including more extreme, dry treatments, to identify the precipitation boundaries within which the current temporal fits remain valid. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Ecosystem responses to increased variability in rainfall, a prediction of general circulation models, were assessed in native grassland by reducing storm frequency and increasing rainfall quantity per storm during a 4-year experiment. More extreme rainfall patterns, without concurrent changes in total rainfall quantity, increased temporal variability in soil moisture and plant species diversity. However, carbon cycling processes such as soil CO2 flux, CO2 uptake by the dominant grasses, and aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) were reduced, and ANPP was more responsive to soil moisture variability than to mean soil water content. Our results show that projected increases in rainfall variability can rapidly alter key carbon cycling processes and plant community composition, independent of changes in total precipitation.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Knapp, Alan K -- Fay, Philip A -- Blair, John M -- Collins, Scott L -- Smith, Melinda D -- Carlisle, Jonathan D -- Harper, Christopher W -- Danner, Brett T -- Lett, Michelle S -- McCarron, James K -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Dec 13;298(5601):2202-5.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA. aknapp@ksu.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12481139" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Studies of experimental grassland communities have demonstrated that plant diversity can stabilize productivity through species asynchrony, in which decreases in the biomass of some species are compensated for by increases in others. However, it remains unknown whether these findings are relevant to natural ecosystems, especially those for which species diversity is threatened by anthropogenic global change. Here we analyse diversity-stability relationships from 41 grasslands on five continents and examine how these relationships are affected by chronic fertilization, one of the strongest drivers of species loss globally. Unmanipulated communities with more species had greater species asynchrony, resulting in more stable biomass production, generalizing a result from biodiversity experiments to real-world grasslands. However, fertilization weakened the positive effect of diversity on stability. Contrary to expectations, this was not due to species loss after eutrophication but rather to an increase in the temporal variation of productivity in combination with a decrease in species asynchrony in diverse communities. Our results demonstrate separate and synergistic effects of diversity and eutrophication on stability, emphasizing the need to understand how drivers of global change interactively affect the reliable provisioning of ecosystem services in real-world systems.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hautier, Yann -- Seabloom, Eric W -- Borer, Elizabeth T -- Adler, Peter B -- Harpole, W Stanley -- Hillebrand, Helmut -- Lind, Eric M -- MacDougall, Andrew S -- Stevens, Carly J -- Bakker, Jonathan D -- Buckley, Yvonne M -- Chu, Chengjin -- Collins, Scott L -- Daleo, Pedro -- Damschen, Ellen I -- Davies, Kendi F -- Fay, Philip A -- Firn, Jennifer -- Gruner, Daniel S -- Jin, Virginia L -- Klein, Julia A -- Knops, Johannes M H -- La Pierre, Kimberly J -- Li, Wei -- McCulley, Rebecca L -- Melbourne, Brett A -- Moore, Joslin L -- O'Halloran, Lydia R -- Prober, Suzanne M -- Risch, Anita C -- Sankaran, Mahesh -- Schuetz, Martin -- Hector, Andy -- England -- Nature. 2014 Apr 24;508(7497):521-5. doi: 10.1038/nature13014. Epub 2014 Feb 16.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA [2] Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. ; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA. ; Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322, USA. ; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA. ; Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada. ; Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK. ; School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; 1] Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Queensland 4072, Australia [2] School of Natural Sciences, Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. ; State Key Laboratory of Grassland and Agro-Ecosystems, Research Station of Alpine Meadow and Wetland Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. ; Department of Biology, MSC03-2020, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA. ; Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC) (CONICET-UNMdP), Mar del Plata 7600, Argentina. ; Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA. ; United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Grassland Soil and Water Research Lab, Temple, Texas 76502, USA. ; Queensland University of Technology, School of Biological Sciences, Brisbane 4000, Australia. ; Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. ; United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Agroecosystem Management Research Unit, Lincoln, Nebraska 68583, USA. ; Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA. ; Berkeley Initiative for Global Change Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. ; Yunnan Academy of Biodiversity, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China. ; Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40546, USA. ; 1] Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology, Melbourne, c/o School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia [2] School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. ; Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA. ; CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia. ; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland. ; 1] School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK [2] National Centre for Biological Sciences, GKVK Campus, Bangalore 560065, India. ; Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24531763" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

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〉

Description: Fraser et al. (Reports, 17 July 2015, p. 302) report a unimodal relationship between productivity and species richness at regional and global scales, which they contrast with the results of Adler et al. (Reports, 23 September 2011, p. 1750). However, both data sets, when analyzed correctly, show clearly and consistently that productivity is a poor predictor of local species richness.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tredennick, Andrew T -- Adler, Peter B -- Grace, James B -- Harpole, W Stanley -- Borer, Elizabeth T -- Seabloom, Eric W -- Anderson, T Michael -- Bakker, Jonathan D -- Biederman, Lori A -- Brown, Cynthia S -- Buckley, Yvonne M -- Chu, Chengjin -- Collins, Scott L -- Crawley, Michael J -- Fay, Philip A -- Firn, Jennifer -- Gruner, Daniel S -- Hagenah, Nicole -- Hautier, Yann -- Hector, Andy -- Hillebrand, Helmut -- Kirkman, Kevin -- Knops, Johannes M H -- Laungani, Ramesh -- Lind, Eric M -- MacDougall, Andrew S -- McCulley, Rebecca L -- Mitchell, Charles E -- Moore, Joslin L -- Morgan, John W -- Orrock, John L -- Peri, Pablo L -- Prober, Suzanne M -- Risch, Anita C -- Schutz, Martin -- Speziale, Karina L -- Standish, Rachel J -- Sullivan, Lauren L -- Wardle, Glenda M -- Williams, Ryan J -- Yang, Louie H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2016 Jan 29;351(6272):457. doi: 10.1126/science.aad6236.〈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. atredenn@gmail.com. ; Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main, Logan, UT 84322, USA. ; U.S. Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, 700 Cajundome Boulevard, Lafayette, LA 70506, USA. ; Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ, Permoserstrasse 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany. ; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA. ; Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, Box 7325 Reynolda Station, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA. ; School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, 3501 NE 41st Street, Box 354115, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. ; Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, 251 Bessey Hall, Ames, IA 50010, USA. ; Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, 307 University Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. ; School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Zoology, Dublin 2, Ireland. ; School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Xingang Xi Road 135, Guangzhou, 510275, China. ; Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. ; Department of Biology, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Ascot, SL5 7PY, UK. ; Grassland, Soil, and Water Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, 808 East Blackland Road, Temple, TX 76502, USA. ; School of Earth, Environmental and Biological 42 Sciences, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Gardens Point, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4001. ; Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, 4112 Plant Sciences, College Park, MD 20742, USA. ; School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 1 Carbis Road, Pietermaritzburg, 3201, South Africa. ; Department of Biology, Ecology and Biodiversity group, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, Netherlands. ; Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RB, UK. ; Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Schleusenstrasse 1, 26382 Wihlhemshaven, Germany. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, 211 Manter Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. ; Biology Department, Doane College, 1014 Boswell Avenue, Crete, NE 68333, USA. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1. ; Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Kentucky, N-222D Ag Science North, Lexington, KY 40546-0091, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#3280, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. ; School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton 3800, Victoria, Australia. ; Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University, Kingsbury Drive, Bundoora 3086, Victoria, Australia. ; Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ; Department of Forestry, Agriculture and Water, Southern Patagonia National University-INTA-CONICET, CC 332 (CP 9400), Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Patagonia, Argentina. ; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia. ; Community Ecology, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland. ; Department of Ecology, INIBIOMA (CONICET-UNCO), Quintral 1250, Bariloche (8400), Rio Negro, Argentina. ; School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, 90 South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Heydon-Laurence Building, A08, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia. ; Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA. ; Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26823418" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: How ecosystem productivity and species richness are interrelated is one of the most debated subjects in the history of ecology. Decades of intensive study have yet to discern the actual mechanisms behind observed global patterns. Here, by integrating the predictions from multiple theories into a single model and using data from 1,126 grassland plots spanning five continents, we detect the clear signals of numerous underlying mechanisms linking productivity and richness. We find that an integrative model has substantially higher explanatory power than traditional bivariate analyses. In addition, the specific results unveil several surprising findings that conflict with classical models. These include the isolation of a strong and consistent enhancement of productivity by richness, an effect in striking contrast with superficial data patterns. Also revealed is a consistent importance of competition across the full range of productivity values, in direct conflict with some (but not all) proposed models. The promotion of local richness by macroecological gradients in climatic favourability, generally seen as a competing hypothesis, is also found to be important in our analysis. The results demonstrate that an integrative modelling approach leads to a major advance in our ability to discern the underlying processes operating in ecological systems.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Grace, James B -- Anderson, T Michael -- Seabloom, Eric W -- Borer, Elizabeth T -- Adler, Peter B -- Harpole, W Stanley -- Hautier, Yann -- Hillebrand, Helmut -- Lind, Eric M -- Partel, Meelis -- Bakker, Jonathan D -- Buckley, Yvonne M -- Crawley, Michael J -- Damschen, Ellen I -- Davies, Kendi F -- Fay, Philip A -- Firn, Jennifer -- Gruner, Daniel S -- Hector, Andy -- Knops, Johannes M H -- MacDougall, Andrew S -- Melbourne, Brett A -- Morgan, John W -- Orrock, John L -- Prober, Suzanne M -- Smith, Melinda D -- England -- Nature. 2016 Jan 21;529(7586):390-3. doi: 10.1038/nature16524. Epub 2016 Jan 13.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉US Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, 700 Cajundome Boulevard, Lafayette, Louisiana 70506, USA. ; Department of Biology, 206 Winston Hall, Wake Forest University, Box 7325 Reynolda Station, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27109, USA. ; Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA. ; Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main, Logan, Utah 84322, USA. ; Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ, Permoserstrasse 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany. ; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Deutscher Platz 5e, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Am Kirchtor 1, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany. ; Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, Utrecht 3584 CH, The Netherlands. ; Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Schleusenstrasse 1, Wilhelmshaven D-26381, Germany. ; Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Lai 40, Tartu 51005, Estonia. ; School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Box 354115, Seattle, Washington 98195-4115, USA. ; School of Natural Sciences, Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. ; Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK. ; Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCB 334, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA. ; Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, 808 East Blackland Road, Temple, Texas 76502, USA. ; #15 Queensland University of Technology, School of Earth, Environment and Biological Sciences, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia. ; Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, 4112 Plant Sciences, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. ; Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RB, UK. ; School of Biological Sciences, 348 Manter Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada. ; Department of Ecology, Environment, and Evolution, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. ; CSIRO Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, Western Australia, 6913, Australia. ; Department of Biology, Colorado State University, 1878 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26760203" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Author(s): J. Voutilainen, A. Fay, P. Häkkinen, J. K. Viljas, T. T. Heikkilä, and P. J. Hakonen We study inelastic energy relaxation in graphene for low energies to find out how electrons scatter with acoustic phonons and other electrons. By coupling the graphene to superconductors, we create a strong dependence of the measured signal, i.e., critical Josephson current, on the electron populati... [Phys. Rev. B 84, 045419] Published Mon Jul 11, 2011