ALBERT

Description: The search for predictions of species diversity across environmental gradients has challenged ecologists for decades. The humped-back model (HBM) suggests that plant diversity peaks at intermediate productivity; at low productivity few species can tolerate the environmental stresses, and at high productivity a few highly competitive species dominate. Over time the HBM has become increasingly controversial, and recent studies claim to have refuted it. Here, by using data from coordinated surveys conducted throughout grasslands worldwide and comprising a wide range of site productivities, we provide evidence in support of the HBM pattern at both global and regional extents. The relationships described here provide a foundation for further research into the local, landscape, and historical factors that maintain biodiversity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Fraser, Lauchlan H -- Pither, Jason -- Jentsch, Anke -- Sternberg, Marcelo -- Zobel, Martin -- Askarizadeh, Diana -- Bartha, Sandor -- Beierkuhnlein, Carl -- Bennett, Jonathan A -- Bittel, Alex -- Boldgiv, Bazartseren -- Boldrini, Ilsi I -- Bork, Edward -- Brown, Leslie -- Cabido, Marcelo -- Cahill, James -- Carlyle, Cameron N -- Campetella, Giandiego -- Chelli, Stefano -- Cohen, Ofer -- Csergo, Anna-Maria -- Diaz, Sandra -- Enrico, Lucas -- Ensing, David -- Fidelis, Alessandra -- Fridley, Jason D -- Foster, Bryan -- Garris, Heath -- Goheen, Jacob R -- Henry, Hugh A L -- Hohn, Maria -- Jouri, Mohammad Hassan -- Klironomos, John -- Koorem, Kadri -- Lawrence-Lodge, Rachael -- Long, Ruijun -- Manning, Pete -- Mitchell, Randall -- Moora, Mari -- Muller, Sandra C -- Nabinger, Carlos -- Naseri, Kamal -- Overbeck, Gerhard E -- Palmer, Todd M -- Parsons, Sheena -- Pesek, Mari -- Pillar, Valerio D -- Pringle, Robert M -- Roccaforte, Kathy -- Schmidt, Amanda -- Shang, Zhanhuan -- Stahlmann, Reinhold -- Stotz, Gisela C -- Sugiyama, Shu-ichi -- Szentes, Szilard -- Thompson, Don -- Tungalag, Radnaakhand -- Undrakhbold, Sainbileg -- van Rooyen, Margaretha -- Wellstein, Camilla -- Wilson, J Bastow -- Zupo, Talita -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jul 17;349(6245):302-5. doi: 10.1126/science.aab3916.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. lfraser@tru.ca. ; Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. ; Department of Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, Uni- versity of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. ; Faculty of Natural Resources College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Iran. ; MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Vacratot, Hungary, and School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. ; Department of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Manhattan, KS 66047, USA. ; Department of Biology, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Department of Botany, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. ; Applied Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystem Research Unit, University of South Africa, Johannesberg, South Africa. ; Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal (IMBIV-CONICET) and Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Espana. ; School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy. ; School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. ; Departamento de Botanica, UNESP - Univ. Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, Brazil. ; Department of Biology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA. ; Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. ; Department of Botany, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary. ; Department of Natural Resources, Islamic Azad University, Nour Branch, Iran. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ; International Centre for Tibetan Plateau Ecosystem Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. ; Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, CH-3013, Bern, Switzerland. ; Department of Ecology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Faculty of Agronomy, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Department of Range and Watershed Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. ; Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. ; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. ; Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki, Japan. ; Institute of Plant Production, Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary. ; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge Research Centre, Lethbridge, AB, Canada. ; Department of Plant Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. ; Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Landcare Research, Dunedin, New Zealand.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26185249" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Tredennick et al. criticize one of our statistical analyses and emphasize the low explanatory power of models relating productivity to diversity. These criticisms do not detract from our key findings, including evidence consistent with the unimodal constraint relationship predicted by the humped-back model and evidence of scale sensitivities in the form and strength of the relationship.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pither, Jason -- Fraser, Lauchlan H -- Jentsch, Anke -- Sternberg, Marcelo -- Zobel, Martin -- Cahill, James -- Beierkuhnlein, Carl -- Bartha, Sandor -- Bennett, Jonathan A -- Boldgiv, Bazartseren -- Brown, Leslie R -- Cabido, Marcelo -- Campetella, Giandiego -- Carlyle, Cameron N -- Chelli, Stefano -- Csergo, Anna Maria -- Diaz, Sandra -- Enrico, Lucas -- Ensing, David -- Fidelis, Alessandra -- Garris, Heath W -- Henry, Hugh A L -- Hohn, Maria -- Klironomos, John -- Koorem, Kadri -- Lawrence-Lodge, Rachael -- Manning, Peter -- Mitchell, Randall J -- Moora, Mari -- Pillar, Valerio D -- Stotz, Gisela C -- Sugiyama, Shu-ichi -- Szentes, Szilard -- Tungalag, Radnaakhand -- Undrakhbold, Sainbileg -- Wellstein, Camilla -- Zupo, Talita -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2016 Jan 29;351(6272):457. doi: 10.1126/science.aad8019.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. jason.pither@ubc.ca. ; Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC, Canada. ; Department of Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ; Department of Biogeography, Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany. ; Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Vacratot, Hungary. School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. ; Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ; Ecology Group, Department of Biology, National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa, Florida, South Africa. ; Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Argentina. ; School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Plant Diversity and Ecosystems Management Unit, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy. ; Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. ; School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. ; Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Vegetal (IMBIV), National Scientific and Technical Research Council and Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Cordoba, Argentina. ; Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. ; Departamento de Botanica, UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil. ; Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. ; Department of Botany, Faculty of Horticultural Science, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. ; Department of Biology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada. ; Department of Botany, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ; Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung, Germany. ; Department of Biology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA. ; Department of Ecology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. ; Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, Hirosaki University, Aomori, Japan. ; Institute of Plant Production, Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary. ; Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26823419" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of experimental drought manipulation studies using rain-out shelters in five sites of natural grassland ecosystems of Europe. The single studies assess the effects of extreme drought on the intraspecific variation of the specific leaf area (SLA), a proxy of plant growth. We evaluate and compare the effect size of the SLA response for the functional groups of forbs and grasses in temperate and sub-Mediterranean systems. We hypothesized that the functional groups of grasses and forbs from temperate grassland systems have different strategies in short-term drought response, measured as adjustment of SLA, with SLA-reduction in grasses and SLA-maintenance in forbs. Second, we hypothesized that grasses and forbs from sub-Mediterranean systems do not differ in their drought response as both groups maintain their SLA. We found a significant decrease of SLA in grasses of the temperate systems in response to drought while SLA of forbs showed no significant response. Lower SLA is associated with enhanced water use efficiency under water stress and thus can be seen as a strategy of phenotypic adjustment. By contrast, in the sub-Mediterranean systems, grasses significantly increased their SLA in the drought treatment. This result points towards a better growth performance of these grasses, which is most likely related to their strategy to allocate resources to belowground parts. The observed SLA reduction of forbs is most likely a direct drought response given that competitive effect of grasses are unlikely due to the scanty vegetation cover. We point out that phenotypic adjustment is an important driver of short-term functional plant response to climatic extremes such as drought. Differential reactions of functional groups have to be interpreted against the background of the group's evolutionary configuration that can differ between climatic zones. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.