Publication Date:
2012-01-17
Description:
Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant species richness and abiotic factors to multifunctionality in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth's land surface and support over 38% of the human population. Multifunctionality was positively and significantly related to species richness. The best-fitting models accounted for over 55% of the variation in multifunctionality and always included species richness as a predictor variable. Our results suggest that the preservation of plant biodiversity is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558739/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558739/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Maestre, Fernando T -- Quero, Jose L -- Gotelli, Nicholas J -- Escudero, Adrian -- Ochoa, Victoria -- Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel -- Garcia-Gomez, Miguel -- Bowker, Matthew A -- Soliveres, Santiago -- Escolar, Cristina -- Garcia-Palacios, Pablo -- Berdugo, Miguel -- Valencia, Enrique -- Gozalo, Beatriz -- Gallardo, Antonio -- Aguilera, Lorgio -- Arredondo, Tulio -- Blones, Julio -- Boeken, Bertrand -- Bran, Donaldo -- Conceicao, Abel A -- Cabrera, Omar -- Chaieb, Mohamed -- Derak, McHich -- Eldridge, David J -- Espinosa, Carlos I -- Florentino, Adriana -- Gaitan, Juan -- Gatica, M Gabriel -- Ghiloufi, Wahida -- Gomez-Gonzalez, Susana -- Gutierrez, Julio R -- Hernandez, Rosa M -- Huang, Xuewen -- Huber-Sannwald, Elisabeth -- Jankju, Mohammad -- Miriti, Maria -- Monerris, Jorge -- Mau, Rebecca L -- Morici, Ernesto -- Naseri, Kamal -- Ospina, Abelardo -- Polo, Vicente -- Prina, Anibal -- Pucheta, Eduardo -- Ramirez-Collantes, David A -- Romao, Roberto -- Tighe, Matthew -- Torres-Diaz, Cristian -- Val, James -- Veiga, Jose P -- Wang, Deli -- Zaady, Eli -- 242658/European Research Council/International -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Jan 13;335(6065):214-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1215442.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Area de Biodiversidad y Conservacion, Departamento de Biologia y Geologia, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnologia, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Calle Tulipan Sin Numero, 28933 Mostoles, Spain. fernando.maestre@urjc.es〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22246775" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Biodiversity
;
*Climate
;
Climate Change
;
Conservation of Natural Resources
;
*Ecosystem
;
Geography
;
Geological Phenomena
;
Models, Statistical
;
*Plants
;
Regression Analysis
;
Temperature
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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