Small coastal watersheds (< 10,000 km2) can play a large role in forming biogeochemical linkages between land and sea, yet the spatial heterogeneity of small watershed ecosystems is poorly understood due to sparse observations in many regions. In this study, we examined the spatial heterogeneity of water quality exported from diverse watersheds in two rainforest fjordland...
Trophic interactions determine food web structure and influence biodiversity, community structure, ecosystem functioning, and food web responses to global change. These interactions are highly flexible, changing on temporal scales from diurnal to evolutionary times due to phenotypic plasticity, rapid evolution and species sorting. Small-scale experimental and theoretical studies...
While the direct effects of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on vegetation have been intensively studied, less is known about the indirect and interactive effects of herbivory on lower trophic levels, such as soil microbes and their processing of carbon pools. We explored how carbon dynamics shift with release from over-browsing by white-tailed deer in two mature stands...
Amazonian floodplains are the most extensive and biodiverse riverine habitat on Earth. They currently face unprecedented fire regimes as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of drought. While it is clear that fire impacts on floodplain ecology can be severe, fire regimes and their effect on forest ecosystems have yet to be fully examined across the considerable...
Nitrogen (N) availability is known to interact with the drought tolerance in plants, but its effects on the morphological acclimation of forest trees to low precipitation have rarely been investigated. Based on a Germany-wide field-study design covering different combinations of climatic conditions and atmospheric N deposition, we harvested young trees up to 70 cm in height of...
Narrowing uncertainties associated with land–atmosphere carbon (C) fluxes is critical for projecting climate futures, but large uncertainties in modeling soil respiration (RS) hinder progress. Difficulties accounting for how biological communities will respond to altered precipitation contribute to those uncertainties, but remain underexplored in situ. In a rainfall and grassland...
Few ecosystems are more sensitive to hydrological change than seasonally-flooded wetlands. Here, we investigate how changes in hydrological regimes caused by the construction of two dams have contributed to large changes in the structure and dynamics of the Kafue Flats, an internationally-important, partially-protected wetland ecosystem in Zambia. We use historical (1970) and...
Shifting species distributions in response to climate change are leading to community reassembly worldwide. Given the importance of forests to the global carbon cycle, reassembly in forests may have important impacts on ecological functioning. Yet, how climate and disturbance jointly influence reassembly has yet to be reconciled. We combined U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory...
Aboveground ecosystem structure moderates and even confers essential ecosystem functions. This includes an ecosystem’s carbon dynamics, which are strongly influenced by its structure: for example, tropical savannas like those in central Kenya store substantial amounts of carbon in soil. Savannas’ belowground allocation of carbon makes them important for global carbon...
Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important elements for soil biology and biogeochemistry worldwide. Yet, despite decades of research, important uncertainties persist about the drivers and changes in soil P forms during long-term soil formation. Here, we analyzed topsoils from nine globally distributed retrogressive soil chronosequences aiming to evaluate the relative...
Flow regimes of river ecosystems worldwide have undergone substantial changes because of water resource development, altering the way in which organic matter is generated and cycled throughout entire river catchments. Flow–ecology studies have focused on structural variables measured at small spatial scales. This creates a challenging mismatch when applying adaptive flow...
As wildfire regimes shift, resource managers are concerned about potential threats to aquatic ecosystems and the species they support, especially fishes. However, predicting fish responses can be challenging because wildfires affect aquatic ecosystems via multiple pathways. Application of whole-ecosystem approaches, such as food web modeling, can act as heuristic tools that offer...
The water colour of numerous lakes is increasing, with consequences for biotic communities. The effects of water colour on the abundance of fish in boreal lakes were examined by evaluating gillnet catches in 78 lakes with a water colour range from 18.9 to 380.0 mg Pt L−1. In all, 22 different fish species were captured. Perch (Perca fluviatilis) and roach (Rutilus rutilus) were...
Models project that climate change is increasing the frequency of severe storm events such as hurricanes. Hurricanes are an important driver of ecosystem structure and function in tropical coastal and island regions and thus impact tropical forest carbon (C) cycling. We used the DayCent model to explore the effects of increased hurricane frequency on humid tropical forest C...
Headwater wetlands are important sites for carbon storage and emissions. While local- and landscape-scale factors are known to influence wetland carbon biogeochemistry, the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of these factors limits our predictive understanding of wetland carbon dynamics. To address this issue, we examined relationships between carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane...
Understanding the sources of primary production supporting marine food webs is important for conserving critical habitats. However, the importance of allochthonous versus autochthonous production is often unclear. We identify the sources of primary production supporting three species of predatory fish (Lutjanus carponotatus, Lutjanus fulviflamma, and Lethrinus punctulatus) in the...
Mixotrophy, a physiological trait combining autotrophy and heterotrophy in one organism, significantly contributes to energy and matter transfer in aquatic ecosystems. However, understanding how environmental factors influence mixoplankton success across freshwater ecosystems has been uncertain. The grand écart hypothesis (GEH) posits that light and nutrient availability are key...
Andean highland soils contain significant quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC); however, more efforts still need to be made to understand the processes behind the accumulation and persistence of SOC and its fractions. This study modeled SOC variables—SOC, refractory SOC (RSOC), and the 13C isotope composition of SOC (δ13CSOC)—using machine learning (ML) algorithms in the...
Trees affect the biotic and abiotic properties of the soil in which they grow. Tree species-specific effects can persist for a long time, even after the trees have been removed. We investigated to what extent such soil legacies of different tree species may impact tree seedlings in their emergence and growth. We performed a plant–soil feedback experiment, using soil that was...
Composting organic matter can lower the global warming potential of food and agricultural waste and provide a nutrient-rich soil amendment. Compost applications generally increase net primary production (NPP) and soil water-holding capacity and may stimulate soil carbon (C) sequestration. Questions remain regarding the effects of compost nitrogen (N) concentrations and...
While the influence of canopy trees on soils in natural and restored forest environments is well studied, the influence of understory species is not. Here, we evaluate the effects of outplanted native woody understory on invasive grass biomass and soil nutrient properties in heavily grass-invaded 30 + year-old plantations of a native N-fixing tree Acacia koa in Hawai‘i. We...
In a warming world, the input of glacier meltwater to inland water ecosystems is predicted to change, potentially affecting their productivity. Meta-ecosystem theory, which posits that the nutrient availability in the recipient ecosystem can determine the extent of cross-ecosystem boundary utilization, can be useful for studying landscape-scale influences of glacier meltwater on...
Tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) have been promoted as indicators of forest biodiversity and to guide conservation practices. Ensuring the provision of diverse TreMs in the long term is crucial for the survival of many forest-dwelling species. Yet, this task is challenging in the absence of information regarding TreM dynamics. We analysed the temporal development of TreMs on 11...
Global biogeochemical cycles have been widely altered due to human activities, potentially compromising the ability of plants to regulate their metabolism. We grew experimental herbaceous communities simulating the understory of eucalypt forests from southeastern Australia to evaluate the effects of elevated CO2 (400 vs. 650 ppm) and changes in soil resource availability (high...