Exotic species dominate many communities; however the functional significance of species’ biogeographic origin remains highly contentious. This debate is fuelled in part by the lack of globally replicated, systematic data assessing the relationship between species provenance, function and response to perturbations. We examined the abundance of native and exotic plant...
Human alterations to nutrient cycles[superscript 1,2] and herbivore communities³⁻⁷
are affecting global biodiversity dramatically². Ecological theory predicts
these changes should be strongly counteractive: nutrient addition
drives plant species loss through intensified competition for
light, whereas herbivores prevent competitive exclusion by increasing
ground-level light, particularly in productive systems[superscript 8,9]. Here we...
Studies of experimental grassland communities¹⁻⁷ have demonstrated
that plant diversity can stabilize productivity through species
asynchrony, in which decreases in the biomass of some species
are compensated for by increases in others[superscript 1,2]. However, it remains
unknown whether these findings are relevant to natural ecosystems,
especially those for which species...
Based on regional-scale studies, aboveground production and litter decomposition are thought to positively covary, because they are driven by shared biotic and climatic factors. Until now we have been unable to test whether production and decomposition are generally coupled across climatically dissimilar regions, because we lacked replicated data collected within...