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Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs

There is widespread concern that cessation of grazing in historically grazed ecosystems is causing biotic homogenization and biodiversity loss. We used 12 montane grassland sites along an 800 km north–south gradient across the UK, to test whether cessation of grazing affects local α- and β-diversity...

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Autores principales: Schrama, Maarten, Quist, Casper W., Arjen de Groot, G., Cieraad, Ellen, Ashworth, Deborah, Laros, Ivo, Hansen, Lars Hestbjerg, Leff, Jonathan, Fierer, Noah, Bardgett, Richard D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10646472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37964526
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1345
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author Schrama, Maarten
Quist, Casper W.
Arjen de Groot, G.
Cieraad, Ellen
Ashworth, Deborah
Laros, Ivo
Hansen, Lars Hestbjerg
Leff, Jonathan
Fierer, Noah
Bardgett, Richard D.
author_facet Schrama, Maarten
Quist, Casper W.
Arjen de Groot, G.
Cieraad, Ellen
Ashworth, Deborah
Laros, Ivo
Hansen, Lars Hestbjerg
Leff, Jonathan
Fierer, Noah
Bardgett, Richard D.
author_sort Schrama, Maarten
collection PubMed
description There is widespread concern that cessation of grazing in historically grazed ecosystems is causing biotic homogenization and biodiversity loss. We used 12 montane grassland sites along an 800 km north–south gradient across the UK, to test whether cessation of grazing affects local α- and β-diversity of below-ground food webs. We show cessation of grazing leads to strongly decreased α-diversity of most groups of soil microbes and fauna, particularly of relatively rare taxa. By contrast, the β-diversity varied between groups of soil organisms. While most soil microbial communities exhibited increased homogenization after cessation of grazing, we observed decreased homogenization for soil fauna after cessation of grazing. Overall, our results indicate that exclusion of domesticated herbivores from historically grazed montane grasslands has far-ranging negative consequences for diversity of below-ground food webs. This underscores the importance of grazers for maintaining the diversity of below-ground communities, which play a central role in ecosystem functioning.
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spelling pubmed-106464722023-11-15 Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs Schrama, Maarten Quist, Casper W. Arjen de Groot, G. Cieraad, Ellen Ashworth, Deborah Laros, Ivo Hansen, Lars Hestbjerg Leff, Jonathan Fierer, Noah Bardgett, Richard D. Proc Biol Sci Global Change and Conservation There is widespread concern that cessation of grazing in historically grazed ecosystems is causing biotic homogenization and biodiversity loss. We used 12 montane grassland sites along an 800 km north–south gradient across the UK, to test whether cessation of grazing affects local α- and β-diversity of below-ground food webs. We show cessation of grazing leads to strongly decreased α-diversity of most groups of soil microbes and fauna, particularly of relatively rare taxa. By contrast, the β-diversity varied between groups of soil organisms. While most soil microbial communities exhibited increased homogenization after cessation of grazing, we observed decreased homogenization for soil fauna after cessation of grazing. Overall, our results indicate that exclusion of domesticated herbivores from historically grazed montane grasslands has far-ranging negative consequences for diversity of below-ground food webs. This underscores the importance of grazers for maintaining the diversity of below-ground communities, which play a central role in ecosystem functioning. The Royal Society 2023-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10646472/ /pubmed/37964526 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1345 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Global Change and Conservation
Schrama, Maarten
Quist, Casper W.
Arjen de Groot, G.
Cieraad, Ellen
Ashworth, Deborah
Laros, Ivo
Hansen, Lars Hestbjerg
Leff, Jonathan
Fierer, Noah
Bardgett, Richard D.
Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title_full Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title_fullStr Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title_full_unstemmed Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title_short Cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
title_sort cessation of grazing causes biodiversity loss and homogenization of soil food webs
topic Global Change and Conservation
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10646472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37964526
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1345
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