Quantifying elemental diversity to study landscape ecosystem function
The movement, distribution, and relative proportions of essential elements across the landscape should influence the structure and functioning of biological communities. Yet, our basic understanding of the spatial distribution of elements, particularly bioavailable elements, across landscapes is limited. Here, we propose a quantitative framework to study the causes and consequences of spatial patterns of elements. Specifically, we integrate distribution models, dissimilarity metrics, and spatial smoothing to predict how the distribution of bioavailable elements changes with spatial extent. Our community and landscape ecology perspective on elemental diversity highlights the characteristic relationships that emerge among elements in landscapes and that can be measured empirically to help us pinpoint ecosystem control points. This step forward provides a mechanistic link between community and ecosystem processes.
Authors
- Yolanda F. Wiersma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4604-9240)
- Isabelle Gounand (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0675-3973)
- Nicolas Loeuille (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9588-6542)
- François Massol (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4098-955X)
- Eric Vander Wal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8534-4317)
- Shawn Leroux (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9580-0294)
- Anne M. McLeod (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4712-9165)
- Éric Harvey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8601-7326)
- Chelsea L. Little
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Memorial University of Newfoundland (CA)
- Inserm (FR)
- Simon Fraser University (CA)
- University of Canterbury (NZ)
- Université Paris-Est Créteil (FR)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Université de Lille (FR)
- Institut Pasteur de Lille (FR)
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille (FR)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- Center for Infection and Immunity of Lille (FR)
- Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (DE)
- Berlin Center for Genomics in Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté (FR)
- Institut d'écologie et des sciences de l'environnement de Paris (FR)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution
- Published
- 2024-10-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2024.09.007
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Soil and Water Nutrient Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.75