| Title: | Grazing-induced biodiversity loss impairs grassland ecosystem stability at multiple scales |
| Author(s): | Liang M; Liang C; Hautier Y; Wilcox KR; Wang S; |
| Address: | "Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resources Use of the Mongolian Plateau, School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China. Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1461-0248 (Electronic) 1461-023X (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Livestock grazing is a major driver shaping grassland biodiversity, functioning and stability. Whether grazing impacts on grassland ecosystems are scale-dependent remains unclear. Here, we conducted a sheep-grazing experiment in a temperate grassland to test grazing effects on the temporal stability of productivity across scales. We found that grazing increased species stability but substantially decreased local community stability due to reduced asynchronous dynamics among species within communities. The negative effect of grazing on local community stability propagated to reduce stability at larger spatial scales. By decreasing biodiversity both within and across communities, grazing reduced biological insurance effects and hence the upscaling of stability from species to communities and further to larger spatial scales. Our study provides the first evidence for the scale dependence of grazing effects on grassland stability through biodiversity. We suggest that ecosystem management should strive to maintain biodiversity across scales to achieve sustainability of grassland ecosystem functions and services" |
| Keywords: | Animals Biodiversity *Ecosystem *Grassland Sheep asynchrony grazing intensity herbivory metacommunity scale dependence; |
| Notes: | "MedlineLiang, Maowei Liang, Cunzhu Hautier, Yann Wilcox, Kevin R Wang, Shaopeng eng 31870505/the Natural Science Foundation of China/ 31988102/the Natural Science Foundation of China/ 2016YFC0500503/the National Key Research and Development Program of China/ KF2020003/the Open Project Program of 'Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resources Use of the Mongolian Plateau/ Letter England 2021/07/29 Ecol Lett. 2021 Oct; 24(10):2054-2064. doi: 10.1111/ele.13826. Epub 2021 Jul 28" |
