Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hodapp, D., Borer, E.T., Harpole, W.S., Lind, E.M., Seabloom, E.W., Adler, P.B., Alberti, J., Arnillas, C.A., Bakker, J.D., Biederman, L., Cadotte, M., Cleland, E.E., Collins, S., Fay, P.A., Firn, J., Hagenah, N., Hautier, Y., Iribarne, O., Knops, J.M.H., McCulley, R.L., MacDougall, A., Moore, J.L., Morgan, J.W., Mortensen, B., La Pierre, K.J., Risch, A.C., Schütz, M., Peri, P., Stevens, C.J., Wright, J. and Hillebrand, H. (2018), Spatial heterogeneity in species composition constrains plant community responses to herbivory and fertilisation. Ecol Lett, 21: 1364-1371. doi:10.1111/ele.13102 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ele.13102 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
Accepted author manuscript, 648 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Letter › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 1/09/2018 |
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<mark>Journal</mark> | Ecology Letters |
Issue number | 9 |
Volume | 21 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Pages (from-to) | 1364-1371 |
Publication Status | Published |
Early online date | 27/06/18 |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
Environmental change can result in substantial shifts in community composition. The associated immigration and extinction events are likely constrained by the spatial distribution of species. Still, studies on environmental change typically quantify biotic responses at single spatial (time series within a single plot) or temporal (spatial beta diversity at single time points) scales, ignoring their potential interdependence. Here, we use data from a global network of grassland experiments to determine how turnover responses to two major forms of environmental change – fertilisation and herbivore loss – are affected by species pool size and spatial compositional heterogeneity. Fertilisation led to higher rates of local extinction, whereas turnover in herbivore exclusion plots was driven by species replacement. Overall, sites with more spatially heterogeneous composition showed significantly higher rates of annual turnover, independent of species pool size and treatment. Taking into account spatial biodiversity aspects will therefore improve our understanding of consequences of global and anthropogenic change on community dynamics.