Daniel S. Maynard results 12
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A Global Regionalisation of Tree Functional CapacityNARA Subscribed
Aim Understanding the global distribution of tree functional diversity is essential for predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change. Traditional biogeographic regionalisations classify ecosystems based on species composition and climate but overlook functional traits, which directly govern processes such as carbon storage, nutrient cycling and productivity. Here, we present the first global functional regionalisatio...
Dominance and rarity in tree communities across the globe: Patterns, predictors and threatsNARA Subscribed
Aim Ecological and anthropogenic factors shift the abundances of dominant and rare tree species within local forest communities, thus affecting species composition and ecosystem functioning. To inform forest and conservation management it is important to understand the drivers of dominance and rarity in local tree communities. We answer the following research questions: (1) What are the patterns of dominance and rarity in tree...
Functional and phylogenetic dimensions of tree biodiversity reveal unique geographic patternsNARA Subscribed
Aim Quantify tree functional and phylogenetic richness and divergence at the global scale, and explore the drivers underpinning these biogeographic patterns. Location Global. Time Period Present. Major Taxa Studied Trees. Methods Using global tree occurrence data, we outlined species' observed ranges using individual alpha hulls to obtain per‐pixel tree species composition at a 0.83‐degree resolution. Using eight traits from a...
Standing dead trees (snags) decompose more slowly than downed dead wood and provide critical habitat for many species. The rate at which snags fall therefore influences forest carbon dynamics and biodiversity. Fall rates correlate strongly with mean annual temperature, presumably because warmer climates facilitate faster wood decomposition and hence degradation of the structural stability of standing wood. These faster decompo...
Intraspecific variation is at the core of evolutionary theory, and yet, from an ecological perspective, we have few robust expectations for how this variation should affect the dynamics of large communities. Here, by adapting an approach from evolutionary game theory, we show that the incorporation of phenotypic variability into competitive networks dramatically alters the dynamics across ecological timescales, stabilising the...
Reconciling empirical interactions and species coexistenceNARA Subscribed
Coexistence in ecological communities is governed largely by the nature and intensity of species interactions. Countless studies have proposed methods to infer these interactions from empirical data, yet models parameterised using such data often fail to recover observed coexistence patterns. Here, we propose a method to reconcile empirical parameterisations of community dynamics with species‐abundance data, ensuring that the...
Species associations overwhelm abiotic conditions to dictate the structure and function of wood‐decay fungal communitiesNARA Subscribed
Environmental conditions exert strong controls on the activity of saprotrophic microbes, yet abiotic factors often fail to adequately predict wood decomposition rates across broad spatial scales. Given that species interactions can have significant positive and negative effects on wood‐decay fungal activity, one possibility is that biotic processes serve as the primary controls on community function, with abiotic controls emer...
Network spandrels reflect ecological assemblyNARA Subscribed
Ecological networks that exhibit stable dynamics should theoretically persist longer than those that fluctuate wildly. Thus, network structures which are over‐represented in natural systems are often hypothesised to be either a cause or consequence of ecological stability. Rarely considered, however, is that these network structures can also be by‐products of the processes that determine how new species attempt to join the com...
Fungal interactions reduce carbon use efficiencyNARA Subscribed
The efficiency by which fungi decompose organic matter contributes to the amount of carbon that is retained in biomass vs. lost to the atmosphere as respiration. This carbon use efficiency ( CUE ) is affected by various abiotic conditions, including temperature and nutrient availability. Theoretically, the physiological costs of interspecific interactions should likewise alter CUE , yet the magnitude of these costs is untested...
Predicting the responsiveness of soil biodiversity to deforestation: a cross‐biome studyNARA Subscribed
The consequences of deforestation for aboveground biodiversity have been a scientific and political concern for decades. In contrast, despite being a dominant component of biodiversity that is essential to the functioning of ecosystems, the responses of belowground biodiversity to forest removal have received less attention. Single‐site studies suggest that soil microbes can be highly responsive to forest removal, but response...
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