Biologists at the University of Washington in St. Louis has decided that beta tree diversity, a measure of site-to-site variation in species composition in a given domain, is more vital to the ecosystem than other parts of biodiversity. a larger scale. The research also shows that dating between beta diversity and tree biomass is strengthened by the expansion of the spatial scale (the length of a domain), a location that has implications for conservation planning. The study was published in the journal Ecology.
The study was led by Jacqueline Reu, who graduated from the University of Washington in 2019 with a double major in Environmental Biology and Physics in the Arts.
Reu’s thesis data collected as a component of a large-scale forest ecology task led by Myers’ study team at the Tyson Research Center, the University of Washington’s environmental box station. More than 60 university students, top academics and study technicians surveyed more than trees for the task.
“Many studies have focused only on small scales when looking for biodiversity and ecosystem service,” said Reu, first of the study. “Our study is one of the first to look at several other measures of biodiversity, as well as the oblique effects of the environment on the ecosystem, serve to build the scale of an herbal system. “
“Our effects verify the theory that beta diversity, or variation in species composition in space, is the most productive measure of biodiversity on a larger scale,” he said. “It is more potent than the other measures of diversity considered, such as local and regional diversity. “diversity. And its importance accumulates as the spatial scale is built. “
Studying the landscapes of the Ozarks
For this study, the researchers knew 14 landscapes of oak and walnut forests, each with at least 3 main types of habitats found in Ozark forests, adding west- or south-facing slopes that tend to be sunnier, drier. , and poor in nutrients. ; valleys and shoals, shady, rich in nutrients and crossed by small streams; and slopes facing east and north, which tend to be the maximum productive in terms of tree cover.
Each landscape included an environmental gradient of nutrient and moisture availability, mild availability, and a variety of topographical conditions.
The scientists quantified the direct effects of 3 other parts of diversity: beta diversity, local diversity (the average number of species in a small area) and regional diversity (the total number of species in the larger landscape), and then calculated the strength of dating between the diversity component and the aerial biomass of trees, forest property connected to ecosystem functioning.
Finally, they analyze the strength of these relationships through 11 spatial scales in each of the landscapes, ranging from 20 × 20 m to 120 × 120 m. in American football about 2. 6 football fields. )
“It’s been a thorny thing in ecology, and in ultimate science, to seek to identify the scale we deserve to use to examine a system,” said Catano, who co-led the new study. “This creates a lot of controversy and a lot of confusion. “
Other studies have uncovered links between beta diversity and ecosystem function, but those earlier studies tended to rely on comparisons made on small plots of land.
Understanding how and why the dating between beta diversity and the ecosystem is intensifying is a high-risk analysis, in part because scientists are trying to map the myriad consequences of biodiversity loss in recent decades.
“It’s not just the gain or loss and the number of species that counts, but also the adjustments in the distribution of species and where you might place them in an ecosystem,” Catano said. “This study and a few others recently have been quite consistent, in the sense that they show that it is the renewal (of the species), or variation in space, that is critical.
“(Beta diversity) has effects on a variety of other purposes, as well as the stability of those purposes over time, as you move from small, local parcel-based ecosystems to large, heterogeneous landscapes,” he said.
“This task highlights the utility of large-scale, long-term case study assignments,” Myers said. the way we set them up is the best for answering questions about how environmental variation and species composition in the area contribute to ecosystem functioning.
“One implication is that if you homogenize environmental conditions, it can also have a negative effect on how the ecosystem works,” Myers said. “Habitat loss or homogenization of the amount of nutrients and other resources restricting organisms in an ecosystem can have cascading effects on ecosystem functioning and services. These are spillover effects that are hard to expect if the environment and diversity are not taken into account. “
Monitoring ecosystem functioning
Since graduating from the University of Washington, the study’s first author, Reu, has painted as an intern at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida, and at the Marine Invasions Laboratory at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Tiburon, California. be motivated through his paintings at the Tyson Research Center.
“Forests are my favorite ecosystem,” Reu said. Without plants, nothing else in the food chain would work: it wouldn’t exist. And that’s why I find his study fascinating. “
During the hot, humid days of his college summers, Reu wandered the woods with a small team of other Tyson Fellows, identifying the trees, measuring their diameter, labeling and mapping them as part of a long-term forest monitoring program. Reu met the seeds collected in seed traps and the seedlings were cleaned, weighed and cataloged. In the evening, she taught herself a statistical programming language to help her classify the data she recorded.
“I liked the mathematical aspect of things,” Reu said. “For this project, I usually learned to myself how to program in R, using YouTube videos.
“It wasn’t the first computer language I learned, but I think it’s the deepest thing I’ve learned so far,” he said. “Then I also did graphics GIS. “
Next summer, Reu will complete a task with rare butterflies in New Hampshire as he prepares for graduate school.
“I’ve had a hobby for ecology,” Reu said. “So when I was looking for other options, Jonathan’s lab really caught my eye. He’s very creative and they do a really meticulous job.
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