Featured
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Letter |
Ancient herders enriched and restructured African grasslands
Isotopic and sedimentary analyses of soils at Pastoral Neolithic archaeological sites in Kenya demonstrate the long-term influence of nutrient enrichment on savannah environments that has accompanied pastoralist settlement over the past three millennia.
- Fiona Marshall
- , Rachel E. B. Reid
- & Stanley H. Ambrose
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Article |
Nomadic ecology shaped the highland geography of Asia’s Silk Roads
The authors use modelling to show that the network of trading routes known as the Silk Road emerged from hundreds of years of interactions between pastoralists as they moved their herds and flocks between higher and lower elevations in generally mountainous regions.
- Michael D. Frachetti
- , C. Evan Smith
- & Tim Williams
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Letter |
Land-use intensification causes multitrophic homogenization of grassland communities
Analysis of a large grassland biodiversity dataset shows that increases in local land-use intensity cause biotic homogenization at landscape scale across microbial, plant and animal groups, both above- and belowground, that is largely independent of changes in local diversity.
- Martin M. Gossner
- , Thomas M. Lewinsohn
- & Eric Allan
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Letter |
Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes
Data from experiments that manipulated grassland biodiversity across Europe and North America show that biodiversity increases an ecosystem’s resistance to, although not resilience after, climate extremes.
- Forest Isbell
- , Dylan Craven
- & Nico Eisenhauer
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Letter |
Seasonal not annual rainfall determines grassland biomass response to carbon dioxide
Large annual variation in the stimulation of above-ground biomass by elevated carbon dioxide in a mixed C3/C4 temperate grassland can be predicted accurately using seasonal rainfall totals.
- Mark J. Hovenden
- , Paul C. D. Newton
- & Karen E. Wills
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Letter |
Herbivores and nutrients control grassland plant diversity via light limitation
Experimental data collected from 40 grasslands on 6 continents show that nutrients and herbivores can serve as counteracting forces to control local plant diversity; nutrient addition reduces local diversity through light limitation, and herbivory rescues diversity at sites where it alleviates light limitation.
- Elizabeth T. Borer
- , Eric W. Seabloom
- & Louie H. Yang
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Letter |
Eutrophication weakens stabilizing effects of diversity in natural grasslands
Experimental eutrophication weakens the stabilizing effects of plant diversity on the productivity of natural grasslands.
- Yann Hautier
- , Eric W. Seabloom
- & Andy Hector
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Letter |
Low investment in sexual reproduction threatens plants adapted to phosphorus limitation
Plant life-history traits, notably plant investments in growth versus reproduction, can explain the impact of nitrogen:phosphorus stoichiometry on plant species richness; compared with plants in nitrogen-limited communities, plants in phosphorus-limited communities (in which endangered plant species are more common) invest little in phosphorus-intense activity such as sexual reproduction and have conservative leaf traits.
- Yuki Fujita
- , Harry Olde Venterink
- & Martin J. Wassen
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Research Highlights |
Teeth speak of dietary change
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News & Views |
The grass response
A three-year study provides insights into how the productivity of a semi-arid rangeland, containing grasses using different photosynthetic pathways, will change in a warmer world with more atmospheric carbon dioxide. See Letter p.202
- Dennis Baldocchi
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Letter |
C4 grasses prosper as carbon dioxide eliminates desiccation in warmed semi-arid grassland
- Jack A. Morgan
- , Daniel R. LeCain
- & Mark West
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News |
Woody shrubs don't slurp up water
Clearing encroaching plants from savannah might make drought worse.
- Erik Vance
Arthropod decline in grasslands and forests is associated with landscape-level drivers