
@article {115013,
	title = {Richness, not evenness, varies across water availability gradients in grassy biomes on five continents.},
	journal = {Oecologia},
	volume = {199},
	year = {2022},
	month = {2022 Jul},
	pages = {649-659},
	abstract = {<p>We sought to understand the role that water availability (expressed as an aridity index) plays in determining regional and global patterns of richness and evenness, and in turn how these water availability-diversity relationships may result in different richness-evenness relationships at regional and global scales. We examined relationships between water availability, richness and evenness for eight grassy biomes spanning broad water availability gradients on five continents. Our study found that relationships between richness and water availability switched from positive for drier (South Africa, Tibet and USA) vs. negative for wetter (India) biomes, though were not significant for the remaining biomes. In contrast, only the India biome showed a significant relationship between water availability and evenness, which was negative. Globally, the richness-water availability relationship was hump-shaped, however, not significant for evenness. At the regional scale, a positive richness-evenness relationship was found for grassy biomes in India and Inner Mongolia, China. In contrast, this relationship was weakly concave-up globally. These results suggest that different, independent factors are determining patterns of species richness and evenness in grassy biomes, resulting in differing richness-evenness relationships at regional and global scales. As a consequence, richness and evenness may respond very differently across spatial gradients to anthropogenic changes, such as climate change.</p>
},
	keywords = {Biodiversity, China, Ecosystem, Poaceae, Water},
	issn = {1432-1939},
	doi = {10.1007/s00442-022-05208-6},
	author = {Smith, Melinda D and Koerner, Sally E and Avolio, Meghan L and Komatsu, Kimberly J and Eby, Stephanie and Forrestel, Elisabeth J and Collins, Scott L and Wilcox, Kevin R and Ahumada, Rodrigo and Morgan, John W and Oliva, Gabriel and O{\~n}atibia, Gast{\'o}n R and Overbeck, Gerhard E and Peter, Guadalupe and Quiroga, Emiliano and Sankaran, Mahesh and Wu, Jianshuang and Yahdjian, Laura and Yu, Qiang}
}
@article {45930,
	title = {Change in dominance determines herbivore effects on plant biodiversity.},
	journal = {Nat Ecol Evol},
	year = {2018},
	month = {2018 Oct 29},
	abstract = {<p>Herbivores alter plant biodiversity (species richness) in many of the world{\textquoteright}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. Here, we synthesize data from 252 large-herbivore exclusion studies, spanning a 20-fold range in site productivity, to test an alternative hypothesis-that herbivore-induced changes in the competitive environment determine the response of plant biodiversity to herbivory irrespective of productivity. Under this hypothesis, when herbivores reduce the abundance (biomass, cover) of dominant species (for example, because the dominant plant is palatable), additional resources become available to support new species, thereby increasing biodiversity. By contrast, if herbivores promote high dominance by increasing the abundance of herbivory-resistant, unpalatable species, then resource availability for other species decreases reducing biodiversity. We show that herbivore-induced change in dominance, independent of site productivity or precipitation (a proxy for productivity), is the best predictor of herbivore effects on biodiversity in grassland and savannah sites. Given that most herbaceous ecosystems are dominated by one or a few species, altering the competitive environment via herbivores or by other means may be an effective strategy for conserving biodiversity in grasslands and savannahs globally.</p>
},
	issn = {2397-334X},
	doi = {10.1038/s41559-018-0696-y},
	author = {Koerner, Sally E and Smith, Melinda D and Burkepile, Deron E and Hanan, Niall P and Avolio, Meghan L and Collins, Scott L and Knapp, Alan K and Lemoine, Nathan P and Forrestel, Elisabeth J and Eby, Stephanie and Thompson, Dave I and Aguado-Santacruz, Gerardo A and Anderson, John P and Anderson, T Michael and Angassa, Ayana and Bagchi, Sumanta and Bakker, Elisabeth S and Bastin, Gary and Baur, Lauren E and Beard, Karen H and Beever, Erik A and Bohlen, Patrick J and Boughton, Elizabeth H and Canestro, Don and Cesa, Ariela and Chaneton, Enrique and Cheng, Jimin and D{\textquoteright}Antonio, Carla M and Deleglise, Claire and Demb{\'e}l{\'e}, Fadiala and Dorrough, Josh and Eldridge, David J and Fernandez-Going, Barbara and Fern{\'a}ndez-Lugo, Silvia and Fraser, Lauchlan H and Freedman, Bill and Garc{\'\i}a-Salgado, Gonzalo and Goheen, Jacob R and Guo, Liang and Husheer, Sean and Karemb{\'e}, Moussa and Knops, Johannes M H and Kraaij, Tineke and Kulmatiski, Andrew and Kyt{\"o}viita, Minna-Maarit and Lezama, Felipe and Loucougaray, Gregory and Loydi, Alejandro and Milchunas, Dan G and Milton, Suzanne J and Morgan, John W and Moxham, Claire and Nehring, Kyle C and Olff, Han and Palmer, Todd M and Rebollo, Salvador and Riginos, Corinna and Risch, Anita C and Rueda, Marta and Sankaran, Mahesh and Sasaki, Takehiro and Schoenecker, Kathryn A and Schultz, Nick L and Sch{\"u}tz, Martin and Schwabe, Angelika and Siebert, Frances and Smit, Christian and Stahlheber, Karen A and Storm, Christian and Strong, Dustin J and Su, Jishuai and Tiruvaimozhi, Yadugiri V and Tyler, Claudia and Val, James and Vandegehuchte, Martijn L and Veblen, Kari E and Vermeire, Lance T and Ward, David and Wu, Jianshuang and Young, Truman P and Yu, Qiang and Zelikova, Tamara Jane}
}
