Wardle David A, Zackrisson Olle
Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology, Faculty of Forestry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, S901-83 Umeå, Sweden.
Nature. 2005 Jun 9;435(7043):806-10. doi: 10.1038/nature03611.
Considerable recent attention has focused on predicting how the losses of species and functional groups influence ecosystem properties, but the extent to which these effects vary among ecosystems remains poorly understood. Island systems have considerable scope for studying how biotic and abiotic factors influence processes in different ecosystems, because they enable the simultaneous study of large numbers of independent replicate systems at ecologically meaningful spatial scales. We studied a group of 30 islands in northern Sweden, for which island size determined disturbance history, and therefore vegetation successional stage and biotic and abiotic ecosystem properties. On each island we conducted a seven-year study that involved experimental removals of combinations of both plant functional groups and plant species. We show that although losses of functional groups and species often impaired key ecosystem processes, these effects were highly context-dependent and strongly influenced by island size. Our study provides evidence that the consequences of biotic loss for ecosystem functioning vary greatly among ecosystems and depend on the specific abiotic and biotic attributes of the system.
近期，相当多的关注聚焦于预测物种和功能群的丧失如何影响生态系统特性，但这些影响在不同生态系统间的变化程度仍知之甚少。岛屿系统在研究生物和非生物因素如何影响不同生态系统中的过程方面具有很大潜力，因为它们能够在具有生态意义的空间尺度上同时研究大量独立的重复系统。我们研究了瑞典北部的一组30个岛屿，岛屿大小决定了干扰历史，进而决定了植被演替阶段以及生物和非生物生态系统特性。在每个岛屿上，我们进行了一项为期七年的研究，其中包括对植物功能群和植物物种组合的实验性移除。我们发现，尽管功能群和物种的丧失常常损害关键的生态系统过程，但这些影响高度依赖于环境，并且受到岛屿大小的强烈影响。我们的研究提供了证据，表明生物丧失对生态系统功能的影响在不同生态系统间差异极大，并且取决于系统特定的非生物和生物属性。
