TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rossberg, Axel G.
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
A1  - Kratina, Pavel
T1  - Dome patterns in pelagic size spectra reveal strong trophic cascades
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - In ecological communities, especially the pelagic zones of aquatic ecosystems, certain bodysize ranges are often over-represented compared to others. Community size spectra, the distributions of community biomass over the logarithmic body-mass axis, tend to exhibit regularly spaced local maxima, called "domes", separated by steep troughs. Contrasting established theory, we explain these dome patterns as manifestations of top-down trophic cascades along aquatic food chains. Compiling high quality size-spectrum data and comparing these with a size-spectrum model introduced in this study, we test this theory and develop a detailed picture of the mechanisms by which bottom-up and top-down effects interact to generate dome patterns. Results imply that strong top-down trophic cascades are common in freshwater communities, much more than hitherto demonstrated, and may arise in nutrient rich marine systems as well. Transferring insights from the general theory of nonlinear pattern formation to domes patterns, we provide new interpretations of past lake-manipulation experiments.
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12289-0
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 10
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mulder, Christian
A1  - Boit, Alice
A1  - Mori, Shigeta
A1  - Vonk, J. Arie
A1  - Dyer, Scott D.
A1  - Faggiano, Leslie
A1  - Geisen, Stefan
A1  - Gonzalez, Angelica L.
A1  - Kaspari, Michael
A1  - Lavorel, Sandra
A1  - Marquet, Pablo A.
A1  - Rossberg, Axel G.
A1  - Sterner, Robert W.
A1  - Voigt, Winfried
A1  - Wall, Diana H.
ED  - Jacob, U
ED  - Woodward, G
T1  - Distributional (In)Congruence of Biodiversity-Ecosystem Functioning
JF  - Advances in ecological research
JF  - Advances in Ecological Research
N2  - The majority of research on biodiversity ecosystem functioning in laboratories has concentrated on a few traits, but there is increasing evidence from the field that functional diversity controls ecosystem functioning more often than does species number. Given the importance of traits as predictors of niche complementarity and community structures, we (1) examine how the diversity sensu lato of forest trees, freshwater fishes and soil invertebrates might support ecosystem functioning and (2) discuss the relevance of productive biota for monophyletic assemblages (taxocenes).
 In terrestrial ecosystems, correlating traits to abiotic factors is complicated by the appropriate choice of body-size distributions. Angiosperm and gymnosperm trees, for example, show metabolic incongruences in their respiration rates despite their pronounced macroecological scaling. Scaling heterotrophic organisms within their monophyletic assemblages seems more difficult than scaling autotrophs: in contrast to the generally observed decline of mass-specific metabolic rates with body mass within metazoans, soil organisms such as protozoans show opposite mass-specific trends.
 At the community level, the resource demand of metazoans shapes multitrophic interactions. Hence, population densities and their food web relationships reflect functional diversity, but the influence of biodiversity on stability and ecosystem functioning remains less clear. We focused on fishes in 18 riverine food webs, where the ratio of primary versus secondary extinctions (hereafter, 'extinction partitioning') summarizes the responses of fish communities to primary species loss (deletions) and its consequences. Based on extinction partitioning, our high-diversity food webs were just as (or even more) vulnerable to extinctions as low-diversity food webs.
 Our analysis allows us to assess consequences of the relocation or removal of fish species and to help with decision-making in sustainable river management. The study highlights that the topology of food webs (and not simply taxonomic diversity) plays a greater role in stabilizing the food web and enhancing ecological services than is currently acknowledged.
Y1  - 2012
SN  - 978-0-12-396992-7
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-396992-7.00001-0
SN  - 0065-2504
VL  - 46
SP  - 1
EP  - 88
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -