Climate warming accelerates tallgrass prairie bioiversity
- Date:
- March 25, 2019
- Source:
- University of Oklahoma
- Summary:
- A study on climate warming in an Oklahoma tallgrass prairie has implications for understanding and predicting ecological consequences of climate change and ecosystem management strategies. More rapid changes in biodiversity are expected in a warmer world. In addition, ecosystem functions and services may become more vulnerable as the structure of an ecosystem is linked to the functions it performs, which may provide positive or negative feedback to climate warming.
- Share:
A University of Oklahoma study on climate warming in an Oklahoma tallgrass prairie has implications for understanding and predicting ecological consequences of climate change and ecosystem management strategies. More rapid changes in biodiversity are expected in a warmer world. In addition, ecosystem functions and services may become more vulnerable as the structure of an ecosystem is linked to the functions it performs, which may provide positive or negative feedback to climate warming.
"Microbial biodiversity depends on both the size of the area sampled and the time span of the observation. Reliable comparison of biodiversity across ecosystems must consider both area and time. This presents challenges for determining appropriate time scale for biodiversity assessment and conservation in ecosystem management," said Jizhong Zhou, director, OU Institute for Environmental Genomics; professor, OU College of Arts and Sciences; and adjunct senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Zhou and OU researchers collaborated with researchers from Central South University, Tsinghua University, China and Michigan State University. The study is the first demonstration illustrating that soil microbes exhibit microbial phylogenetic diversity increases with time and document that warming plays predominant roles in regulating temporal scaling.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Oklahoma. Original written by Jana Smith. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Xue Guo, Xishu Zhou, Lauren Hale, Mengting Yuan, Daliang Ning, Jiajie Feng, Zhou Shi, Zhenxin Li, Bin Feng, Qun Gao, Linwei Wu, Weiling Shi, Aifen Zhou, Ying Fu, Liyou Wu, Zhili He, Joy D. Van Nostrand, Guanzhou Qiu, Xueduan Liu, Yiqi Luo, James M. Tiedje, Yunfeng Yang, Jizhong Zhou. Climate warming accelerates temporal scaling of grassland soil microbial biodiversity. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-0848-8
Cite This Page: