• Energy Research

AbstractRecent studies from mountainous areas of small spatial extent (<2500 km2) suggest that fine‐grained thermal variability over tens or hundreds of metres exceeds much of the climate warming expected for the coming decades. Such variability in temperature provides buffering to mitigate climate‐change impacts. Is this local spatial buffering restricted to topographically complex terrains? To answer this, we here study fine‐grained thermal variability across a 2500‐km wide latitudinal gradient in Northern Europe encompassing a large array of topographic complexities. We first combined plant community data, Ellenberg temperature indicator values, locally measured temperatures (LmT) and globally interpolated temperatures (GiT) in a modelling framework to infer biologically relevant temperature conditions from plant assemblages within <1000‐m2 units (community‐inferred temperatures: CiT). We then assessed: (1) CiT range (thermal variability) within 1‐km2 units; (2) the relationship between CiT range and topographically and geographically derived predictors at 1‐km resolution; and (3) whether spatial turnover in CiT is greater than spatial turnover in GiT within 100‐km2 units. Ellenberg temperature indicator values in combination with plant assemblages explained 46–72% of variation in LmT and 92–96% of variation in GiT during the growing season (June, July, August). Growing‐season CiT range within 1‐km2 units peaked at 60–65°N and increased with terrain roughness, averaging 1.97 °C (SD = 0.84 °C) and 2.68 °C (SD = 1.26 °C) within the flattest and roughest units respectively. Complex interactions between topography‐related variables and latitude explained 35% of variation in growing‐season CiT range when accounting for sampling effort and residual spatial autocorrelation. Spatial turnover in growing‐season CiT within 100‐km2 units was, on average, 1.8 times greater (0.32 °C km−1) than spatial turnover in growing‐season GiT (0.18 °C km−1). We conclude that thermal variability within 1‐km2 units strongly increases local spatial buffering of future climate warming across Northern Europe, even in the flattest terrains.

Significance The stability of ecological communities under ongoing climate and land-use change is fundamental to the sustainable management of natural resources through its effect on critical ecosystem services. Biodiversity is hypothesized to enhance stability through compensatory effects (decreased synchrony between species). However, the relative importance and interplay between different biotic and abiotic drivers of stability remain controversial. By analyzing long-term data from natural and seminatural ecosystems across the globe, we found that the degree of synchrony among dominant species was the main driver of stability, rather than species richness per se. These biotic effects overrode environmental drivers, which influenced the stability of communities by modulating the effects of richness and synchrony.

Summary Although experiments show a positive association between vascular plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) species richness, evidence from natural ecosystems is scarce. Furthermore, there is little knowledge about how AMF richness varies with belowground plant richness and biomass. We examined relationships among AMF richness, above‐ and belowground plant richness, and plant root and shoot biomass in a native North American grassland. Root‐colonizing AMF richness and belowground plant richness were detected from the same bulk root samples by 454‐sequencing of the AMF SSU rRNA and plant trnL genes. In total we detected 63 AMF taxa. Plant richness was 1.5 times greater belowground than aboveground. AMF richness was significantly positively correlated with plant species richness, and more strongly with below‐ than aboveground plant richness. Belowground plant richness was positively correlated with belowground plant biomass and total plant biomass, whereas aboveground plant richness was positively correlated only with belowground plant biomass. By contrast, AMF richness was negatively correlated with belowground and total plant biomass. Our results indicate that AMF richness and plant belowground richness are more strongly related with each other and with plant community biomass than with the plant aboveground richness measures that have been almost exclusively considered to date.

The relationship between net primary productivity and biological diversity has been a central topic in ecology for several decades. The unimodal ("hump-back") relationship has been the most widely accepted for plants with the decrease in diversity at high productivity usually attributed to competitive exclusion. However, the relatively small species pool size under high productivity conditions may account for this pattern as well. Small species pool sizes for highly productive habitats are characteristic of temperate regions, where productive habitats for speciation and species migration have historically been rare. In contrast, productive habitats in the tropics have been relatively common during evolutionary history, resulting in large species pools. We hypothesize that evolutionary history contributes to the observed productivity-diversity relationship of plants, and that the productivity-diversity relationship differs between temperate and tropical regions. We investigated the productivity-diversity relationship patterns from 163 case studies throughout the world. Latitude described approximately 80% of the variation in the shape of the relationships. The unimodal relationship was found to dominate in the temperate zone, whereas the positive relationship was significantly more common in the tropics. We detected no influence due to methods of productivity measurement, but unimodal or positive productivity-diversity relationships were more likely within larger ranges of productivity. The length of the productivity gradient did not affect the latitudinal influence. In summary, the shape of the productivity-diversity relationship differs between temperate and tropical regions and the different evolutionary history of the local species pools is a probable cause for the difference.

This repository contains the data associated with the paper Tedersoo et al. (2022) Global patterns in endemicity and vulnerability of soil fungi // Global Change Biology. DOI:10.1111/gcb.16398 Fungi are highly diverse organisms and provide a wealth of ecosystem functions. However, distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been very little explored compared to charismatic animals and plants. Here we assess endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. Endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are vulnerable mostly to drought, heat and land cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests and woodlands. We suggest that there should be more attention focused on the conservation of fungi, especially tropical root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi, unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high matching in conservation needs, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms in general. This repository contains the following data associated with the publication: Supplementary tables S1 - S6 (`Tables_S1-S6.xlsx`): - Table S1. Definition of ecoregions and assignment of samples to ecoregions - Table S2. GSMc dataset used for endemicity analyses - Table S3. Dataset used for modeling endemicity values - Table S4. Dataset used for calculating and mapping vulnerability scores - Table S5. Dataset used for calculating and mapping conservation value - Table S6. Additional funding sources by authors OTU distribution by samples and ecoregions (`Data_taxon_assignment_to ecoregions.xlsx`) Gridded maps: Conservation priorities for all fungi and fungal groups - ConservationPriority_AllFungi.tif - ConservationPriority_AM.tif - ConservationPriority_EcM.tif - ConservationPriority_Moulds.tif - ConservationPriority_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - ConservationPriority_OHPs.tif - ConservationPriority_Pathogens.tif - ConservationPriority_Unicellular.tif - ConservationPriority_Yeasts.tif The average vulnerability of all fungi and fungal groups and the model uncertainty estimates - AverageVulnerability_AllFungi.tif - AverageVulnerability_AM.tif - AverageVulnerability_EcM.tif - AverageVulnerability_Moulds.tif - AverageVulnerability_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - AverageVulnerability_OHPs.tif - AverageVulnerability_Pathogens.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_AllFungi.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_AM.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_EcM.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Moulds.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_OHPs.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Pathogens.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Unicellular.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Yeasts.tif - AverageVulnerability_Unicellular.tif - AverageVulnerability_Yeasts.tif The relative importance of predicted vulnerability of all fungi - RelativeImportanceOfVulnerability_AllFungi.tif Vulnerability to drought, heat, and land cover change for all fungi - Vulnerability_AllFungi_Heat-Drought-LandCoverChange.tif - VulnerabilityUncertainty_AllFungi_Heat-Drought-LandCoverChange.tif Human footprint index based on the Land-Use Harmonisation (LUH2; Hurtt et al., 2020, doi:10.5194/gmd-13-5425-2020) - `LandCoverChange_1960-2015.tif` MD5 checksums for all files (`MD5.md5`) Fungal groups: - AM, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (including all Glomeromycota but excluding all Endogonomycetes) - EcM, ectomycorrhizal fungi (excluding dubious lineages) - NonEcMAgaricomycetes, non-EcM Agaricomycetes (mostly saprotrophic fungi with usually macroscopic fruiting bodies) - Moulds (including Mortierellales, Mucorales, Umbelopsidales and Aspergillaceae and Trichocomaceae of Eurotiales and Trichoderma of Hypocreales) - Putative pathogens (including plant, animal and fungal pathogens as primary or secondary lifestyles) - OHPs, opportunistic human parasites (excluding Mortierellales) - Yeasts (excluding dimorphic yeasts) - Unicellular, other unicellular (non-yeast) fungi (including chytrids, aphids, rozellids and other early-diverging fungal lineages) Detailed processing steps can be found here: https://github.com/Mycology-Microbiology-Center/Fungal_Endemicity_and_Vulnerability This repository contains the data associated with the paper Tedersoo et al. (2022) Global patterns in endemicity and vulnerability of soil fungi // Global Change Biology. DOI:10.1111/gcb.16398 Fungi are highly diverse organisms and provide a wealth of ecosystem functions. However, distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been very little explored compared to charismatic animals and plants. Here we assess endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. Endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are vulnerable mostly to drought, heat and land cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests and woodlands. We suggest that there should be more attention focused on the conservation of fungi, especially tropical root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi, unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high matching in conservation needs, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms in general.

Global change may substantially affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning but little is known about its effects on essential biotic interactions. Since different environmental drivers rarely act in isolation it is important to consider interactive effects. Here, we focus on how two key drivers of anthropogenic environmental change, climate change and the introduction of alien species, affect plant–pollinator interactions. Based on a literature survey we identify climatically sensitive aspects of species interactions, assess potential effects of climate change on these mechanisms, and derive hypotheses that may form the basis of future research. We find that both climate change and alien species will ultimately lead to the creation of novel communities. In these communities certain interactions may no longer occur while there will also be potential for the emergence of new relationships. Alien species can both partly compensate for the often negative effects of climate change but also amplify them in some cases. Since potential positive effects are often restricted to generalist interactions among species, climate change and alien species in combination can result in significant threats to more specialist interactions involving native species.