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Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications

The relationship between net primary productivity (NPP) and species richness has been the subject of long-running debate. A changing climate gives added impetus to resolving this debate, as it becomes increasingly necessary to predict biodiversity responses that might arise from shifts in productivi...

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Autores principales: McBride, Paul D., Cusens, Jarrod, Gillman, Len N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4231355/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25249265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plu057
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author McBride, Paul D.
Cusens, Jarrod
Gillman, Len N.
author_facet McBride, Paul D.
Cusens, Jarrod
Gillman, Len N.
author_sort McBride, Paul D.
collection PubMed
description The relationship between net primary productivity (NPP) and species richness has been the subject of long-running debate. A changing climate gives added impetus to resolving this debate, as it becomes increasingly necessary to predict biodiversity responses that might arise from shifts in productivity or its climatic correlates. It has become increasingly clear that at small scales productivity–species richness relationships (PSRs) are variable, while at macro scales relationships are typically positive. We demonstrate the importance of explicitly considering scale in discussions on PSRs even at large scales by showing that distinct patterns emerge in a global dataset of terrestrial ecoregions when ecoregions are binned into size classes. At all sizes, PSRs in ecoregions are positive, but the strength of the PSR scales positively with ecoregion size. In small ecoregions (10(3)–10(4) km(2)), factors correlating with productivity play only a minor role in species richness patterns, while in large ecoregions (>10(5) km(2)), NPP modelled from remotely sensed data is able to explain most of the variation in species richness. Better understanding the effects of scale on PSRs contributes to the debate on the relationship between species richness and productivity, which in turn allows us to better predict how both long- and short-term biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functioning might be altered under global change scenarios. This gives focus on future research to clarify causal pathways between species richness and productivity with appropriate attention to scale as an important focusing element.
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spelling pubmed-42313552015-06-26 Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications McBride, Paul D. Cusens, Jarrod Gillman, Len N. AoB Plants Research Articles The relationship between net primary productivity (NPP) and species richness has been the subject of long-running debate. A changing climate gives added impetus to resolving this debate, as it becomes increasingly necessary to predict biodiversity responses that might arise from shifts in productivity or its climatic correlates. It has become increasingly clear that at small scales productivity–species richness relationships (PSRs) are variable, while at macro scales relationships are typically positive. We demonstrate the importance of explicitly considering scale in discussions on PSRs even at large scales by showing that distinct patterns emerge in a global dataset of terrestrial ecoregions when ecoregions are binned into size classes. At all sizes, PSRs in ecoregions are positive, but the strength of the PSR scales positively with ecoregion size. In small ecoregions (10(3)–10(4) km(2)), factors correlating with productivity play only a minor role in species richness patterns, while in large ecoregions (>10(5) km(2)), NPP modelled from remotely sensed data is able to explain most of the variation in species richness. Better understanding the effects of scale on PSRs contributes to the debate on the relationship between species richness and productivity, which in turn allows us to better predict how both long- and short-term biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functioning might be altered under global change scenarios. This gives focus on future research to clarify causal pathways between species richness and productivity with appropriate attention to scale as an important focusing element. Oxford University Press 2014-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4231355/ /pubmed/25249265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plu057 Text en Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
McBride, Paul D.
Cusens, Jarrod
Gillman, Len N.
Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title_full Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title_fullStr Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title_full_unstemmed Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title_short Revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
title_sort revisiting spatial scale in the productivity–species richness relationship: fundamental issues and global change implications
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4231355/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25249265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plu057
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