Unforeseen plant phenotypic diversity in a dry and grazed world.

Earth harbours an extraordinary plant phenotypic diversity that is at risk from ongoing global changes. However, it remains unknown how increasing aridity and livestock grazing pressure-two major drivers of global change-shape the trait covariation that underlies plant phenotypic diversity. Here we assessed how covariation among 20 chemical and morphological traits responds to aridity and grazing pressure within global drylands.

Hotspots of biogeochemical activity linked to aridity and plant traits across global drylands.

Perennial plants create productive and biodiverse hotspots, known as fertile islands, beneath their canopies. These hotspots largely determine the structure and functioning of drylands worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the factors controlling fertile islands under conditions of contrasting grazing by livestock, the most prevalent land use in drylands, remain virtually unknown.

Testing prescribed burning to shift an agronomic grass community to a diverse native plant community.

Prescribed burning can be an effective land management tool. Here, we study changes in plant diversity and composition following experimental fire disturbance in microcosm units extracted from a twenty-five-year-old historically reclaimed grassland located at Highland Valley Copper mine in British Columbia (B.C.

Microbial composition and function in reclaimed mine sites along a reclamation chronosequence become increasingly similar to undisturbed reference sites.

Mine reclamation historically focuses on enhancing plant coverage to improve below and aboveground ecology. However, there is a great need to study the role of soil microorganisms in mine reclamation, particularly long-term studies that track the succession of microbial communities. Here, we investigate the trajectory of microbial communities of mining sites reclaimed between three and 26 years.

Plant provenance can influence the impacts of temperature and moisture on intraspecific competition in .

Warming and changing precipitation can alter the performance of native grasses that are essential to grassland ecosystems. Native grasses may respond to changing climate by phenotypic plasticity or lose their current ranges. Establishing plant species from southern, warmer provenances may reduce the likelihood of biodiversity loss and improve restoration success in cool, northern locations that are undergoing warming.

Consistent predictors of microbial community composition across spatial scales in grasslands reveal low context-dependency.

Environmental circumstances shaping soil microbial communities have been studied extensively. However, due to disparate study designs, it has been difficult to resolve whether a globally consistent set of predictors exists, or context-dependency prevails. Here, we used a network of 18 grassland sites (11 of those containing regional plant productivity gradients) to examine (i) if similar abiotic or biotic factors predict both large-scale (across sites) and regional-scale (within sites) patterns in bacterial and fungal community composition, and (ii) if microbial community composition differs consistently at two levels of regional plant productivity (low vs.

Ant nests increase litter decomposition to mitigate the negative effect of warming in an alpine grassland ecosystem.

Warming can decrease feeding activity of soil organisms and affect biogeochemical cycles. The ant is active on the nest surface and prefers a hot, dry environment; therefore, warming may provide a favourable environment for its activities. We hypothesized that benefit from warming and mitigate the negative effects of warming on litter decomposition.

Winner and losers: examining biotic interactions in forbs and grasses in response to changes in water and temperature in a semi-arid grassland.

Warming and changing water amount can alter the outcome of biotic interactions in native and exotic plants between facilitation and competition. Exotic plants may adapt better to changing environmental conditions, such that they may compete better than native plants. We conducted competition trials for four plant species, two exotic forbs ( and ) and two grasses (exotic and native ), commonly found in Southern interior British Columbia.

Metabarcoding of soil environmental DNA to estimate plant diversity globally.

Introduction: Traditional approaches to collecting large-scale biodiversity data pose huge logistical and technical challenges. We aimed to assess how a comparatively simple method based on sequencing environmental DNA (eDNA) characterises global variation in plant diversity and community composition compared with data derived from traditional plant inventory methods.

Methods: We sequenced a short fragment (P6 loop) of the chloroplast trnL intron from from 325 globally distributed soil samples and compared estimates of diversity and composition with those derived from traditional sources based on empirical (GBIF) or extrapolated plant distribution and diversity data.

Global diversity and distribution of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil.

Our knowledge of microbial biogeography has advanced in recent years, yet we lack knowledge of the global diversity of some important functional groups. Here, we used environmental DNA from 327 globally collected soil samples to investigate the biodiversity patterns of nitrogen-fixing bacteria by focusing on the H gene but also amplifying the general prokaryotic 16S SSU region. Globally, N-fixing prokaryotic communities are driven mainly by climatic conditions, with most groups being positively correlated with stable hot or seasonally humid climates.

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands.

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have never been addressed simultaneously. Using a standardized survey at 98 sites across six continents, we show that interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil, and biodiversity are critical to explain the delivery of fundamental ecosystem services across drylands worldwide.

Spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) creates a soil legacy effect by modulating soil elemental composition in a semi-arid grassland ecosystem.

Invasive plants such as spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) are particularly detrimental to fragile ecosystems like semi-arid grasslands in the interior British Columbia, impacting aboveground and belowground ecology. Physical removal of C. stoebe has been one of the most popular invasive species management strategies, but the impact of C.

Dominance, diversity, and niche breadth in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities.

Classical theory identifies resource competition as the major structuring force of biotic communities and predicts that (i) levels of dominance and richness in communities are inversely related, (ii) narrow niches allow dense "packing" in niche space and thus promote diversity, and (iii) dominants are generalists with wide niches, such that locally abundant taxa also exhibit wide distributions. Current empirical support, however, is mixed. We tested these expectations using published data on arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal community composition worldwide.

Global taxonomic and phylogenetic assembly of AM fungi.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are a ubiquitous group of plant symbionts, yet processes underlying their global assembly - in particular the roles of dispersal limitation and historical drivers - remain poorly understood. Because earlier studies have reported niche conservatism in AM fungi, we hypothesized that variation in taxonomic community composition (i.e.

Biosolids in Western Canada: A Case Study on Public Risk Perception and Factors Influencing Public Attitudes.

The land application of biosolids can be subject to questions and concerns, suggesting a gap exists with public perception of biosolids. There is opposition amongst a segment of the population regarding the land application of biosolids in the Southern Interior of British Columbia in Canada. Kamloops and Merritt communities were assessed through a mailout survey to understand better public perceptions of biosolids risks and factors that influence attitudes towards biosolids management.

Temperature and pH define the realised niche space of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are a globally distributed group of soil organisms that play critical roles in ecosystem function. However, the ecological niches of individual AM fungal taxa are poorly understood. We collected > 300 soil samples from natural ecosystems worldwide and modelled the realised niches of AM fungal virtual taxa (VT; approximately species-level phylogroups).

Are arthropod communities in grassland ecosystems affected by the abundance of an invasive plant?

Invasive plants cause changes to native plant communities and nutrient cycling, and by doing so, may alter the amount and quality of habitat available for animals at multiple trophic levels, including arthropods. Arthropods are generally abundant, diverse, and contribute to energy flow and nutrient cycling and are, therefore, an important group to study as a way of determining the effects of changes to ecosystem functioning. Spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe L.

Priority effects: How the order of arrival of an invasive grass, , alters productivity and plant community structure when grown with native grass species.

Theories and models attempt to explain how and why particular plant species grow together at particular sites or why invasive exotic species dominate plant communities. As local climates change and human-use degrades and disturbs ecosystems, a better understanding of how plant communities assemble is pertinent, particularly when restoring grassland ecosystems that are frequently disturbed. One such community assembly theory is priority effects, which suggests that arrival order of species into a community alters plant-plant interactions and community assembly.

TRY-A plant trait database of databases.

Plant traits, such as height or specific leaf area, are expressions of plant performance and are important indicators of ecosystem function. Here, the TRY plant database is highlighted as the most comprehensive archive of global plant data, with open access to the public.

Global evidence of positive biodiversity effects on spatial ecosystem stability in natural grasslands.

The effect of biodiversity on primary productivity has been a hot topic in ecology for over 20 years. Biodiversity-productivity relationships in natural ecosystems are highly variable, although positive relationships are most common. Understanding the conditions under which different relationships emerge is still a major challenge.

Change in dominance determines herbivore effects on plant biodiversity.

Herbivores alter plant biodiversity (species richness) in many of the world's ecosystems, but the magnitude and the direction of herbivore effects on biodiversity vary widely within and among ecosystems. One current theory predicts that herbivores enhance plant biodiversity at high productivity but have the opposite effect at low productivity. Yet, empirical support for the importance of site productivity as a mediator of these herbivore impacts is equivocal.

Short-term microbial effects of a large-scale mine-tailing storage facility collapse on the local natural environment.

We investigated the impacts of the Mount Polley tailings impoundment failure on chemical, physical, and microbial properties of substrates within the affected watershed, comprised of 70 hectares of riparian wetlands and 40 km of stream and lake shore. We established a biomonitoring network in October of 2014, two months following the disturbance, and evaluated riparian and wetland substrates for microbial community composition and function via 16S and full metagenome sequencing. A total of 234 samples were collected from substrates at 3 depths and 1,650,752 sequences were recorded in a geodatabase framework.