Demographic composition, not demographic diversity, predicts biomass and turnover across temperate and tropical forests.

The growth and survival of individual trees determine the physical structure of a forest with important consequences for forest function. However, given the diversity of tree species and forest biomes, quantifying the multitude of demographic strategies within and across forests and the way that they translate into forest structure and function remains a significant challenge. Here, we quantify the demographic rates of 1961 tree species from temperate and tropical forests and evaluate how demographic diversity (DD) and demographic composition (DC) differ across forests, and how these differences in demography relate to species richness, aboveground biomass (AGB), and carbon residence time. We find wide variation in DD and DC across forest plots, patterns that are not explained by species richness or climate variables alone. There is no evidence that DD has an effect on either AGB or carbon residence time. Rather, the DC of forests, specifically the relative abundance of large statured species, predicted both biomass and carbon residence time. Our results demonstrate the distinct DCs of globally distributed forests, reflecting biogeography, recent history, and current plot conditions. Linking the DC of forests to resilience or vulnerability to climate change, will improve the precision and accuracy of predictions of future forest composition, structure, and function.

Interactions between all pairs of neighboring trees in 16 forests worldwide reveal details of unique ecological processes in each forest, and provide windows into their evolutionary histories.

When Darwin visited the Galapagos archipelago, he observed that, in spite of the islands' physical similarity, members of species that had dispersed to them recently were beginning to diverge from each other. He postulated that these divergences must have resulted primarily from interactions with sets of other species that had also diverged across these otherwise similar islands. By extrapolation, if Darwin is correct, such complex interactions must be driving species divergences across all ecosystems. However, many current general ecological theories that predict observed distributions of species in ecosystems do not take the details of between-species interactions into account. Here we quantify, in sixteen forest diversity plots (FDPs) worldwide, highly significant negative density-dependent (NDD) components of both conspecific and heterospecific between-tree interactions that affect the trees' distributions, growth, recruitment, and mortality. These interactions decline smoothly in significance with increasing physical distance between trees. They also tend to decline in significance with increasing phylogenetic distance between the trees, but each FDP exhibits its own unique pattern of exceptions to this overall decline. Unique patterns of between-species interactions in ecosystems, of the general type that Darwin postulated, are likely to have contributed to the exceptions. We test the power of our null-model method by using a deliberately modified data set, and show that the method easily identifies the modifications. We examine how some of the exceptions, at the Wind River (USA) FDP, reveal new details of a known allelopathic effect of one of the Wind River gymnosperm species. Finally, we explore how similar analyses can be used to investigate details of many types of interactions in these complex ecosystems, and can provide clues to the evolution of these interactions.

Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems.

Natural and seminatural ecosystems must be at the forefront of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In the urgency of current circumstances, ecosystem restoration represents a range of available, efficient, and effective solutions to cut net greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Although mitigation success can be measured by monitoring changing fluxes of greenhouse gases, adaptation is more complicated to measure, and reductions in a wide range of risks for biodiversity and people must be evaluated. Progress has been made in the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and mitigation measures, but more emphasis on testing the effectiveness of proposed strategies is necessary. It is essential to take an integrated view of mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and the needs of people, to realize potential synergies and avoid conflict between different objectives.

Large extents of intensive land use limit community reorganization during climate warming.

Climate change is increasingly altering the composition of ecological communities, in combination with other environmental pressures such as high-intensity land use. Pressures are expected to interact in their effects, but the extent to which intensive human land use constrains community responses to climate change is currently unclear. A generic indicator of climate change impact, the community temperature index (CTI), has previously been used to suggest that both bird and butterflies are successfully 'tracking' climate change. Here, we assessed community changes at over 600 English bird or butterfly monitoring sites over three decades and tested how the surrounding land has influenced these changes. We partitioned community changes into warm- and cold-associated assemblages and found that English bird communities have not reorganized successfully in response to climate change. CTI increases for birds are primarily attributable to the loss of cold-associated species, whilst for butterflies, warm-associated species have tended to increase. Importantly, the area of intensively managed land use around monitoring sites appears to influence these community changes, with large extents of intensively managed land limiting 'adaptive' community reorganization in response to climate change. Specifically, high-intensity land use appears to exacerbate declines in cold-adapted bird and butterfly species, and prevent increases in warm-associated birds. This has broad implications for managing landscapes to promote climate change adaptation.

Influences of extreme weather, climate and pesticide use on invertebrates in cereal fields over 42 years.

Cereal fields are central to balancing food production and environmental health in the face of climate change. Within them, invertebrates provide key ecosystem services. Using 42 years of monitoring data collected in southern England, we investigated the sensitivity and resilience of invertebrates in cereal fields to extreme weather events and examined the effect of long-term changes in temperature, rainfall and pesticide use on invertebrate abundance. Of the 26 invertebrate groups examined, eleven proved sensitive to extreme weather events. Average abundance increased in hot/dry years and decreased in cold/wet years for Araneae, Cicadellidae, adult Heteroptera, Thysanoptera, Braconidae, Enicmus and Lathridiidae. The average abundance of Delphacidae, Cryptophagidae and Mycetophilidae increased in both hot/dry and cold/wet years relative to other years. The abundance of all 10 groups usually returned to their long-term trend within a year after the extreme event. For five of them, sensitivity to cold/wet events was lowest (translating into higher abundances) at locations with a westerly aspect. Some long-term trends in invertebrate abundance correlated with temperature and rainfall, indicating that climate change may affect them. However, pesticide use was more important in explaining the trends, suggesting that reduced pesticide use would mitigate the effects of climate change.

Predictive systems ecology.

Human societies, and their well-being, depend to a significant extent on the state of the ecosystems that surround them. These ecosystems are changing rapidly usually in response to anthropogenic changes in the environment. To determine the likely impact of environmental change on ecosystems and the best ways to manage them, it would be desirable to be able to predict their future states. We present a proposal to develop the paradigm of predictive systems ecology, explicitly to understand and predict the properties and behaviour of ecological systems. We discuss the necessary and desirable features of predictive systems ecology models. There are places where predictive systems ecology is already being practised and we summarize a range of terrestrial and marine examples. Significant challenges remain but we suggest that ecology would benefit both as a scientific discipline and increase its impact in society if it were to embrace the need to become more predictive.

Environmental myopia: a diagnosis and a remedy.

Long-term ecological observation affords a picture of the past that uniquely informs our understanding of present and future ecological communities and processes. Without a long-term perspective, our vision is prone to environmental myopia. Long-term experiments (LTEs) in particular can reveal the mechanisms that underlie change in communities and ecosystem functioning in a way that cannot be understood by long-term monitoring alone. Despite the urgent need to know more about how climate change will affect ecosystems and their functioning, the continued existence of LTEs is extremely precarious and we believe that dedicated funds are needed to support them. A new non-profit organization called the Ecological Continuity Trust seeks to provide a solution to this problem by establishing an endowment that will be specifically earmarked to sustain LTEs as a scientific tool for the benefit of future generations.

Taxonomic homogenization of woodland plant communities over 70 years.

Taxonomic homogenization (TH) is the increasing similarity of the species composition of ecological communities over time. Such homogenization represents a form of biodiversity loss and can result from local species turnover. Evidence for TH is limited, reflecting a lack of suitable historical datasets, and previous analyses have generated contrasting conclusions. We present an analysis of woodland patches across a southern English county (Dorset) in which we quantified 70 years of change in the composition of vascular plant communities. We tested the hypotheses that over this time patches decreased in species richness, homogenized, or shifted towards novel communities. Although mean species richness at the patch scale did not change, we found increased similarity in species composition among woodlands over time. We concluded that the woodlands have undergone TH without experiencing declines in local diversity or shifts towards novel communities. Analysis of species characteristics suggested that these changes were not driven by non-native species invasions or climate change, but instead reflected reorganization of the native plant communities in response to eutrophication and increasingly shaded conditions. These analyses provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of TH in the UK and highlight the potential importance of this phenomenon as a contributor to biodiversity loss.

Comparative measurements of transpiration and canopy conductance in two mixed deciduous woodlands differing in structure and species composition.

Transpiration of two heterogeneous broad-leaved woodlands in southern England was monitored by the sap flux technique throughout the 2006 growing season. Grimsbury Wood, which had a leaf area index (LAI) of 3.9, was dominated by oak (Quercus robur L.) and birch (Betula pubescens L.) and had a continuous hazel (Corylus avellana L.) understory. Wytham Woods, which had an LAI of 3.6, was dominated by ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) and sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) and had only a sparse understory. Annual canopy transpiration was 367 mm for Grimsbury Wood and 397 mm for Wytham Woods. These values were similar to those for beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) plantations in the same region, and differ from one another by less than the typical margin of uncertainty of the sap flux technique. Canopy conductance (g(c)), calculated for both woodlands by inverting the Penman-Monteith equation, was related to incoming solar radiation (R(G)) and the vapor pressure deficit (D). The response of g(c) to R(G) was similar for both forests. Both reference conductance (g(cref)), defined as g(c) at D=1 kPa, and stomatal sensitivity (-m), defined as the slope of the logarithmic response curve of g(c) to D, increased during the growing season at Wytham Woods but not at Grimsbury Wood. The -m/g(cref) ratio was significantly lower at Wytham Woods than at Grimsbury Wood and was insufficient to keep the difference between leaf and soil water potentials constant, according to a simple hydraulic model. This meant that annual water consumption of the two woodlands was similar despite different regulatory mechanisms and associated short-term variations in canopy transpiration. The -m/g(cref) ratio depended on the range of D under which the measurements were made. This was shown to be particularly important for studies conducted under low and narrow ranges of D.