Species loss due to nutrient addition increases with spatial scale in global grasslands

The effects of altered nutrient supplies and herbivore density on species diversity vary with spatial scale, because coexistence mechanisms are scale dependent. This scale dependence may alter the shape of the species–area relationship (SAR), which can be described by changes in species richness (S)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2021-10, Vol.24 (10), p.2100-2112
Main Authors: Seabloom, Eric W., Batzer, Evan, Chase, Jonathan M., Stanley Harpole, W., Adler, Peter B., Bagchi, Sumanta, Bakker, Jonathan D., Barrio, Isabel C., Biederman, Lori, Boughton, Elizabeth H., Bugalho, Miguel N., Caldeira, Maria C., Catford, Jane A., Daleo, Pedro, Eisenhauer, Nico, Eskelinen, Anu, Haider, Sylvia, Hallett, Lauren M., Svala Jónsdóttir, Ingibjörg, Kimmel, Kaitlin, Kuhlman, Marirose, MacDougall, Andrew, Molina, Cecilia D., Moore, Joslin L., Morgan, John W., Muthukrishnan, Ranjan, Ohlert, Timothy, Risch, Anita C., Roscher, Christiane, Schütz, Martin, Sonnier, Grégory, Tognetti, Pedro M., Virtanen, Risto, Wilfahrt, Peter A., Borer, Elizabeth T., Haddad, Nick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
biodiversity
Coexistence
community ecology
Density
Grasslands
Herbivores
Nutrient enrichment
Nutrient loss
nutrients
Sampling
Species diversity
Species richness
Species-area relationship
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Summary:The effects of altered nutrient supplies and herbivore density on species diversity vary with spatial scale, because coexistence mechanisms are scale dependent. This scale dependence may alter the shape of the species–area relationship (SAR), which can be described by changes in species richness (S) as a power function of the sample area (A): S = cAz, where c and z are constants. We analysed the effects of experimental manipulations of nutrient supply and herbivore density on species richness across a range of scales (0.01–75 m2) at 30 grasslands in 10 countries. We found that nutrient addition reduced the number of species that could co‐occur locally, indicated by the SAR intercepts (log c), but did not affect the SAR slopes (z). As a result, proportional species loss due to nutrient enrichment was largely unchanged across sampling scales, whereas total species loss increased over threefold across our range of sampling scales. The effects of altered nutrient supplies and herbivore density on species diversity vary with spatial scale, because coexistence mechanisms are scale dependent. We analyzed the effects of experimental manipulations of nutrient supply and herbivore density on species richness across a range of scales (0.01–75 m2) at 30 grasslands in 10 countries. We found that proportional species loss due to nutrient enrichment was constant across sampling scales, and total species loss increased more than threefold across our range of sampling scales.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.13838