Publications by authors named "I H Myers-Smith"
Article Synopsis
- Northern herbivores significantly impact tundra ecosystems, but the effects of herbivore diversity on these ecosystems have been largely overlooked, especially with ongoing climate and land-use changes.
- This systematic review analyzed numerous studies (201 articles and over 3700 individual comparisons) to understand how different levels of herbivore diversity (measured by functional group richness) influence ecosystem processes and functions in the tundra.
- The findings highlight a concentrated body of research from specific locations, emphasizing the need for more comprehensive studies across diverse Arctic regions to grasp the full effects of herbivore diversity on ecosystem functionality.
The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change is leading to species redistributions. In the tundra biome, shrubs are generally expanding, but not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species, and the characteristics that may determine success or failure, have not yet been fully identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLooking back on biodiversity change: lessons for the road ahead.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
July 2023
Article Synopsis
- Scientists are studying how wildlife and plant life (biodiversity) is changing around the world because of human activities.
- They look at different measures of biodiversity, like how many species there are, how species change over time, and how similar or different species are in different places.
- While some areas show both increases and decreases in species, research suggests that overall, the number of extinct species is going up faster than new species are forming globally.
Non-forest ecosystems, dominated by shrubs, grasses and herbaceous plants, provide ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and forage for grazing, and are highly sensitive to climatic changes. Yet these ecosystems are poorly represented in remotely sensed biomass products and are undersampled by in situ monitoring. Current global change threats emphasize the need for new tools to capture biomass change in non-forest ecosystems at appropriate scales.
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