Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, 135 Duke Marine Lab Road, Beaufort, NC, 28516, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2015 May;18(5):462-71. doi: 10.1111/ele.12429. Epub 2015 Apr 5.
A major challenge in ecology is to understand broadscale trends in the impact of environmental change. We provide the first integrative analysis of the effects of eutrophication on plants, herbivores, and their interactions in coastal wetlands across latitudes. We show that fertilisation strongly increases herbivory in salt marshes, but not in mangroves, and that this effect increases with increasing latitude in salt marshes. We further show that stronger nutrient effects on plant nitrogen concentration at higher latitudes is the mechanism likely underlying this pattern. This biogeographic variation in nutrient effects on plant-herbivore interactions has consequences for vegetation, with those at higher latitudes being more vulnerable to consumer pressure fuelled by eutrophication. Our work provides a novel, mechanistic understanding of how eutrophication affects plant-herbivore systems predictably across broad latitudinal gradients, and highlights the power of incorporating biogeography into understanding large-scale variability in the impacts of environmental change.
生态学的一个主要挑战是理解环境变化影响的广泛趋势。我们提供了对沿海湿地中富营养化对植物、食草动物及其相互作用影响的首次综合分析。我们表明，施肥强烈增加了盐沼中的食草作用，但对红树林没有影响，而且这种影响随着盐沼纬度的增加而增加。我们进一步表明，较高纬度地区养分对植物氮浓度的影响更强，这可能是这种模式的机制。这种养分对植物-食草动物相互作用的生物地理变化对植被有影响，较高纬度地区的植被更容易受到富营养化引发的消费者压力的影响。我们的工作提供了一个新颖的、机制性的理解，即富营养化如何在广泛的纬度梯度上可预测地影响植物-食草动物系统，并强调了将生物地理学纳入理解环境变化影响的大规模变异性的力量。
