ORCID Profile
0000-0002-6367-4761
Current Organisation
Institute of Agricultural Sciences-CSIC
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 31-12-2019
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14904
Abstract: Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to bio ersity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits—almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on in idual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2014
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-10-2015
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.12382
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-03-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-05-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-022-01756-5
Abstract: Soil fungi are fundamental to plant productivity, yet their influence on the temporal stability of global terrestrial ecosystems, and their capacity to buffer plant productivity against extreme drought events, remain uncertain. Here we combined three independent global field surveys of soil fungi with a satellite-derived temporal assessment of plant productivity, and report that phylotype richness within particular fungal functional groups drives the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. The richness of fungal decomposers was consistently and positively associated with ecosystem stability worldwide, while the opposite pattern was found for the richness of fungal plant pathogens, particularly in grasslands. We further demonstrated that the richness of soil decomposers was consistently positively linked with higher resistance of plant productivity in response to extreme drought events, while that of fungal plant pathogens showed a general negative relationship with plant productivity resilience/resistance patterns. Together, our work provides evidence supporting the critical role of soil fungal ersity to secure stable plant production over time in global ecosystems, and to buffer against extreme climate events.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-01-2022
Abstract: Soil microbial communities largely determine the ability of soils to provide multiple functions simultaneously (i.e. soil multifunctionality multifunctionality hereafter). However, a major research challenge is understanding how soil microbial communities and associated multifunctionality resist and recover from extreme climate events such as droughts, and how the legacy of past climatic conditions may constrain such responses. Here, we used soils subjected to 7 years of reduced rainfall (~35% reduction), warming (3°C temperature increase) and their combination to assess climate change legacies on the resistance and resilience of both soil fungal and bacterial communities and multifunctionality to a subsequent extreme drought event (2 weeks at 3% water‐holding capacity). At the end of the extreme drought, and 1, 15 and 60 days after rewetting, we assessed bacterial and fungal community composition, richness and abundance, as well as a multifunctionality index based on eight functions related with soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) cycling. Climate change legacies influenced the resistance and resilience of bacterial and fungal abundance to extreme drought, but not those of community composition, richness and multifunctionality. The resistance of bacterial and fungal abundance showed opposite responses to warming and reduced rainfall. Specifically, climate change legacies increased the resistance of fungal abundance, whereas they reduced that of bacterial abundance. The resistance and resilience of multifunctionality to extreme drought were not related to the resistance or resilience of bacterial and fungal communities. Yet, the resistance of multifunctionality was related to that of Chytridiomycota , whereas its resilience was related to that of Proteobacteria . Overall, our results indicate that climate change legacies affected the resistance and resilience of soil bacterial and fungal abundance to a subsequent extreme drought event, but not those of their community composition, richness and multifunctionality. Our results provide new insights on how climate change legacies contrastingly influence the resistance and resilience of soil microbial communities and multifunctionality. Furthermore, our findings highlight the role that specific microbial taxa play in maintaining soil multifunctionality and recovering from extreme drought events predicted under anthropogenic climate change. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 10-02-2021
Abstract: Identifying species assemblages that boost the provision of multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) is crucial to undertake effective restoration actions aiming at simultaneously promoting bio ersity and high multifunctionality in a changing world. By disentangling the effect of multiple traits on multifunctionality in a litter decomposition experiment, we show that it is possible to identify the assemblages that boost multifunctionality across multiple species mixtures originating from six biomes. We found that higher evenness among dissimilar species and the functional attributes of rare species as key bio ersity attributes to enhance multifunctionality and to reduce the abundance of plant pathogens. Our study identifies those species assemblages needed to simultaneously maximize multifunctionality and limit plant disease risks in natural and managed ecosystems.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2013
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE12670
Abstract: The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are interlinked by primary production, respiration and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. It has been suggested that the C, N and P cycles could become uncoupled under rapid climate change because of the different degrees of control exerted on the supply of these elements by biological and geochemical processes. Climatic controls on biogeochemical cycles are particularly relevant in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems (drylands) because their biological activity is mainly driven by water availability. The increase in aridity predicted for the twenty-first century in many drylands worldwide may therefore threaten the balance between these cycles, differentially affecting the availability of essential nutrients. Here we evaluate how aridity affects the balance between C, N and P in soils collected from 224 dryland sites from all continents except Antarctica. We find a negative effect of aridity on the concentration of soil organic C and total N, but a positive effect on the concentration of inorganic P. Aridity is negatively related to plant cover, which may favour the dominance of physical processes such as rock weathering, a major source of P to ecosystems, over biological processes that provide more C and N, such as litter decomposition. Our findings suggest that any predicted increase in aridity with climate change will probably reduce the concentrations of N and C in global drylands, but increase that of P. These changes would uncouple the C, N and P cycles in drylands and could negatively affect the provision of key services provided by these ecosystems.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 13-01-2012
Abstract: The relationship between species richness and the functional properties of their ecosystems has often been studied at small scales in experimental plots. Maestre et al. (p. 214 see the Perspective by Midgley ) performed field measurements at 224 dryland sites from six continents and assessed 14 ecosystem functions related to carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling. Positive relationships were observed between perennial plant species richness and ecosystem functionality. The relative importance of bio ersity was found to be as large as, or larger than, many key abiotic variables. Thus, preservation of plant bio ersity is important to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth's land surface and support over 38% of the human population.
No related grants have been discovered for Pablo Garcia-Palacios.