Borer Elizabeth T, Grace James B, Harpole W Stanley, MacDougall Andrew S, Seabloom Eric W
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1479 Gortner Avenue, 140 Gortner Laboratory, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.
US Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, 700 Cajundome Boulevard, Lafayette, Louisiana 70506, USA.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Apr 20;1(5):118. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0118.
Earth's biodiversity and carbon uptake by plants, or primary productivity, are intricately interlinked, underlie many essential ecosystem processes, and depend on the interplay among environmental factors, many of which are being changed by human activities. While ecological theory generalizes across taxa and environments, most empirical tests of factors controlling diversity and productivity have been observational, single-site experiments, or meta-analyses, limiting our understanding of variation among site-level responses and tests of general mechanisms. A synthesis of results from ten years of a globally distributed, coordinated experiment, the Nutrient Network (NutNet), demonstrates that species diversity promotes ecosystem productivity and stability, and that nutrient supply and herbivory control diversity via changes in composition, including invasions of non-native species and extinction of native species. Distributed experimental networks are a powerful tool for tests and integration of multiple theories and for generating multivariate predictions about the effects of global changes on future ecosystems.
地球上的生物多样性与植物的碳吸收（即初级生产力）紧密相连，是许多重要生态系统过程的基础，并且依赖于环境因素之间的相互作用，其中许多环境因素正因人类活动而发生改变。虽然生态理论适用于不同的分类群和环境，但大多数关于控制多样性和生产力的因素的实证检验都是观测性的、单站点实验或元分析，这限制了我们对站点水平响应差异的理解以及对一般机制的检验。一项对全球分布、协调进行了十年的实验——营养网络（NutNet）的结果综合表明，物种多样性促进生态系统生产力和稳定性，并且养分供应和食草作用通过组成变化（包括非本地物种入侵和本地物种灭绝）来控制多样性。分布式实验网络是检验和整合多种理论以及对全球变化对未来生态系统的影响进行多变量预测的有力工具。
