Wardle Communities and Ecosystems

Linking the Aboveground and Belowground Components
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-4729-7
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 408 Seiten

Reihe: Monographs in Population Biology

Most of the earth's terrestrial species live in the soil. These organisms, which include many thousands of species of fungi and nematodes, shape aboveground plant and animal life as well as our climate and atmosphere. Indeed, all terrestrial ecosystems consist of interdependent aboveground and belowground compartments. Despite this, aboveground and belowground ecology have been conducted largely in isolation. This book represents the first major synthesis to focus explicitly on the connections between aboveground and belowground subsystems--and their importance for community structure and ecosystem functioning.

David Wardle integrates a vast body of literature from numerous fields--including population ecology, ecosystem ecology, ecophysiology, ecological theory, soil science, and global-change biology--to explain the key conceptual issues relating to how aboveground and belowground communities affect one another and the processes that each component carries out. He then applies these concepts to a host of critical questions, including the regulation and function of biodiversity as well as the consequences of human-induced global change in the form of biological invasions, extinctions, atmospheric carbon-dioxide enrichment, nitrogen deposition, land-use change, and global warming.

Through ambitious theoretical synthesis and a tremendous range of examples, Wardle shows that the key biotic drivers of community and ecosystem properties involve linkages between aboveground and belowground food webs, biotic interaction, the spatial and temporal dynamics of component organisms, and, ultimately, the ecophysiological traits of those organisms that emerge as ecological drivers. His conclusions will propel theoretical and empirical work throughout ecology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wardle, David A.

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments vii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: The Soil Food Web: Biotic Interactions and Regulators 7

Controls: Top Down, Bottom Up, and Productivity 9

Regulation by Resources and Predation in Soil Food Webs 16

Litter Transformers, Ecosystem Engineers, and Mutualisms 37

The Functionality of Soil Food Webs 43

Stability and Temporal Variability 48

Synthesis 53

Chapter 3: Plant Species Control of Soil Biota and Processes 56

Plant Species Effects on Soil Biota 57

Links among Plant Species, Soil Biota, and Soil Processes 68

Temporal and Spatial Variability 73

Plant Traits, Strategies, and Ecophysiological Constraints 83

Soil Biotic Responses to Vegetation Succession 97

Synthesis 103

Chapter 4: Belowground Consequences of Aboveground Food Web Interactions 105

Individual Plant Effects 106

Dung and Urine Return 114

Effects of Palatability Differences among Plant Species 117

Spatial and Temporal Variability 130

Consequences of Predation of Herbivores 132

Transport of Resources by Aboveground Consumers 134

Synthesis 136

Chapter 5: Completing the Circle: How Soil Food Web Effects Are Manifested Aboveground 138

The Decomposer Food Web 140

Nitrogen Transformations 152

Microbial Associates of Plant Roots 157

Root Herbivores 169

Physical Effects of Soil Biota 173

Soil Biotic Effects on Aboveground Food Webs 175

Synthesis 181

Chapter 6: The Regulation and Function of Biological Diversity 183

Assessment of Soil Diversity 184

Stress and Disturbance as Controls of Soil Diversity 187

Biotic Controls of Diversity 194

The Enigma of Soil Diversity 203

Diversity of Soil Organisms over Larger Spatial Scales 205

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function 209

Synthesis 236

Chapter 7: Global Change Phenomena in an Aboveground-Belowground Context 239

Species Losses and Gains 240

Land Use Changes 253

Carbon Dioxide Enrichment and Nitrogen Deposition 265

Global Climate Change 281

Synthesis 292

Chapter 8: Underlying Themes 295

References 309

Index 387

Über Autor(innen)

David A. Wardle is Professor of Soil and Plant Ecology at the University of Sheffield and has published widely on biotic interactions, biodiversity, and soil biology.