ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8422-1198
Current Organisations
University of Tokyo
,
Kyoto University
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2021
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 05-01-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2394473/V1
Abstract: Fundamental axes of variation in plant traits result from trade-offs between costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf scale. However, it is unclear whether trade-offs and optimality principles in functional traits of leaves are conserved at the ecosystem level. We tested three well-known leaf- and plant-level coordination theories at the ecosystem scale: the leaf economics spectrum, the global spectrum of plant form and function, and the least-cost hypothesis. We combined ecosystem functional properties from 98 FLUXNET sites, vegetation properties, and ecosystem-level plant traits into three corresponding principal component analyses. Coordination is conserved at the ecosystem scale. However, additional processes occur at the ecosystem level compared to the leaf scale, highlighting the importance of scale-emergent properties in understanding and predicting ecosystem behaviour. Evaluating the coordination of ecosystem functional properties supports the development of more realistic global dynamic vegetation models with critical empirical data, reducing the uncertainty of climate change projections.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-07-2023
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 11-01-2022
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-1242094/V1
Abstract: Animals, such as termites, have largely been overlooked as global-scale drivers of biogeochemical cycles 1,2 , despite site-specific findings 3,4 . Deadwood turnover, an important component of the carbon cycle, is driven by multiple decay agents. Studies have focused on temperate systems 5,6 , where microbes dominate decay 7 . Microbial decay is sensitive to temperature, typically doubling per 10°C increase (decay effective Q 10 = ~2) 8–10 . Termites are important decayers in tropical systems 3,11–13 and differ from microbes in their population dynamics, dispersal, and substrate discovery 14–16 , meaning their climate sensitivities also differ. Using a network of 133 sites spanning 6 continents, we report the first global field-based quantification of temperature and precipitation sensitivities for termites and microbes, providing novel understandings of their response to changing climates. Temperature sensitivity of microbial decay was within previous estimates. Termite discovery and consumption were both much more sensitive to temperature (decay effective Q 10 = 6.53), leading to striking differences in deadwood turnover in areas with and without termites. Termite impacts were greatest in tropical seasonal forests and savannas and subtropical deserts. With tropicalization 17 (i.e., warming shifts to a tropical climate), the termite contribution to global wood decay will increase as more of the earth’s surface becomes accessible to termites.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 17-11-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.11.14.382846
Abstract: Both historical and contemporary environmental conditions determine present bio ersity patterns, but their relative importance is not well understood. One way to disentangle their relative effects is to assess how different dimensions of beta- ersity relate to past climatic changes, i.e., taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional compositional dissimilarity, and their components generated by replacement of species, lineages and traits (turnover) and richness changes (nestedness). Here, we quantify global patterns of each of these aspects of beta- ersity among neighboring sites for angiosperm trees using the most extensive global database of tree species-distributions (43,635 species). We found that temperature change since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was the major influence on both turnover and nestedness components of beta- ersity, with a negative correlation to turnover and a positive correlation to nestedness. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional nestedness was higher than expected from taxonomic beta- ersity in regions that experienced large temperature changes since the LGM. This pattern reflects relatively greater losses of phylogenetic and functional ersity in species-poor assemblages, possibly caused by phylogenetically and functionally selective species extinction and recolonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results send a strong warning that rapid anthropogenic climate change is likely to result in a long-lasting phylogenetic and functional compositional simplification, potentially impairing forest ecosystem functioning.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-06-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-022-30888-2
Abstract: Due to massive energetic investments in woody support structures, trees are subject to unique physiological, mechanical, and ecological pressures not experienced by herbaceous plants. Despite a wealth of studies exploring trait relationships across the entire plant kingdom, the dominant traits underpinning these unique aspects of tree form and function remain unclear. Here, by considering 18 functional traits, encompassing leaf, seed, bark, wood, crown, and root characteristics, we quantify the multidimensional relationships in tree trait expression. We find that nearly half of trait variation is captured by two axes: one reflecting leaf economics, the other reflecting tree size and competition for light. Yet these orthogonal axes reveal strong environmental convergence, exhibiting correlated responses to temperature, moisture, and elevation. By subsequently exploring multidimensional trait relationships, we show that the full dimensionality of trait space is captured by eight distinct clusters, each reflecting a unique aspect of tree form and function. Collectively, this work identifies a core set of traits needed to quantify global patterns in functional bio ersity, and it contributes to our fundamental understanding of the functioning of forests worldwide.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-10-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-19252-4
Abstract: Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant ersity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant ersity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42 grasslands across the globe and quantify the effect of chronic fertilization on these relationships. Unfertilized local communities with more plant species exhibit greater asynchronous dynamics among species in response to natural environmental fluctuations, resulting in greater local stability (alpha stability). Moreover, neighborhood communities that have greater spatial variation in plant species composition within sites (higher beta ersity) have greater spatial asynchrony of productivity among communities, resulting in greater stability at the larger scale (gamma stability). Importantly, fertilization consistently weakens the contribution of plant ersity to both of these stabilizing mechanisms, thus diminishing the positive effect of bio ersity on stability at differing spatial scales. Our findings suggest that preserving grassland functional stability requires conservation of plant ersity within and among ecological communities.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 03-06-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.06.02.128975
Abstract: Trees are of vital importance for ecosystem functioning and services at local to global scales, yet we still lack a detailed overview of the global patterns of tree ersity and the underlying drivers, particularly the imprint of paleoclimate. Here, we present the high-resolution (110 km) worldwide mapping of tree species richness, functional and phylogenetic ersities based on ∼7 million quality-assessed occurrences for 46,752 tree species (80.5% of the estimated total number of tree species), and subsequent assessments of the influence of paleo-climate legacies on these patterns. All three tree ersity dimensions exhibited the expected latitudinal decline. Contemporary climate emerged as the strongest driver of all ersity patterns, with Pleistocene and deeper-time ( 7 years) paleoclimate as important co-determinants, and, notably, with past cold and drought stress being linked to reduced current ersity. These findings demonstrate that tree ersity is affected by paleoclimate millions of years back in time and highlight the potential for tree ersity losses from future climate change.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 28-09-2022
Abstract: Deadwood is a large global carbon store with its store size partially determined by biotic decay. Microbial wood decay rates are known to respond to changing temperature and precipitation. Termites are also important decomposers in the tropics but are less well studied. An understanding of their climate sensitivities is needed to estimate climate change effects on wood carbon pools. Using data from 133 sites spanning six continents, we found that termite wood discovery and consumption were highly sensitive to temperature (with decay increasing .8 times per 10°C increase in temperature)—even more so than microbes. Termite decay effects were greatest in tropical seasonal forests, tropical savannas, and subtropical deserts. With tropicalization (i.e., warming shifts to tropical climates), termite wood decay will likely increase as termites access more of Earth’s surface.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-10-2018
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-018-06788-9
Abstract: Increasing evidence indicates that forest disturbances are changing in response to global change, yet local variability in disturbance remains high. We quantified this considerable variability and analyzed whether recent disturbance episodes around the globe were consistently driven by climate, and if human influence modulates patterns of forest disturbance. We combined remote sensing data on recent (2001–2014) disturbances with in-depth local information for 50 protected landscapes and their surroundings across the temperate biome. Disturbance patterns are highly variable, and shaped by variation in disturbance agents and traits of prevailing tree species. However, high disturbance activity is consistently linked to warmer and drier than average conditions across the globe. Disturbances in protected areas are smaller and more complex in shape compared to their surroundings affected by human land use. This signal disappears in areas with high recent natural disturbance activity, underlining the potential of climate-mediated disturbance to transform forest landscapes.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-11-2016
DOI: 10.1111/EVA.12436
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-08-2023
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: Wiley
Date: 16-03-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-06-2021
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.13776
Abstract: Community composition is a primary determinant of how bio ersity change influences ecosystem functioning and, therefore, the relationship between bio ersity and ecosystem functioning (BEF). We examine the consequences of community composition across six structurally realistic plant community models. We find that a positive correlation between species’ functioning in monoculture versus their dominance in mixture with regard to a specific function (the “function‐dominance correlation”) generates a positive relationship between realised ersity and ecosystem functioning across species richness treatments. However, because realised ersity declines when few species dominate, a positive function‐dominance correlation generates a negative relationship between realised ersity and ecosystem functioning within species richness treatments. Removing seed inflow strengthens the link between the function–dominance correlation and BEF relationships across species richness treatments but weakens it within them. These results suggest that changes in species’ identities in a local species pool may more strongly affect ecosystem functioning than changes in species richness.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 23-04-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.21.052464
Abstract: Although trees are key to ecosystem functioning, many forests and tree species across the globe face strong threats. Preserving areas of high bio ersity is a core priority for conservation however, different dimensions of bio ersity and varied conservation targets make it difficult to respond effectively to this challenge. Here, we ( i ) identify priority areas for global tree conservation using comprehensive coverage of tree ersity based on taxonomy, phylogeny, and functional traits and ( ii ) compare these findings to existing protected areas and global bio ersity conservation frameworks. We find that ca . 51% of the top-priority areas for tree bio ersity are located in current protected areas. The remaining half top-priority areas are subject to moderate to high human pressures, indicating conservation actions are needed to mitigate these human impacts. Our findings emphasize the effectiveness of using tree conservation priority areas for future global conservation planning.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-07-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-023-39572-5
Abstract: Fundamental axes of variation in plant traits result from trade-offs between costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf scale. However, it is unclear whether similar trade-offs propagate to the ecosystem level. Here, we test whether trait correlation patterns predicted by three well-known leaf- and plant-level coordination theories – the leaf economics spectrum, the global spectrum of plant form and function, and the least-cost hypothesis – are also observed between community mean traits and ecosystem processes. We combined ecosystem functional properties from FLUXNET sites, vegetation properties, and community mean plant traits into three corresponding principal component analyses. We find that the leaf economics spectrum (90 sites), the global spectrum of plant form and function (89 sites), and the least-cost hypothesis (82 sites) all propagate at the ecosystem level. However, we also find evidence of additional scale-emergent properties. Evaluating the coordination of ecosystem functional properties may aid the development of more realistic global dynamic vegetation models with critical empirical data, reducing the uncertainty of climate change projections.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-07-2022
DOI: 10.1002/FEE.2536
Abstract: Despite substantial progress in understanding global bio ersity loss, major taxonomic and geographic knowledge gaps remain. Decision makers often rely on expert judgement to fill knowledge gaps, but are rarely able to engage with sufficiently large and erse groups of specialists. To improve understanding of the perspectives of thousands of bio ersity experts worldwide, we conducted a survey and asked experts to focus on the taxa and freshwater, terrestrial, or marine ecosystem with which they are most familiar. We found several points of overwhelming consensus (for instance, multiple drivers of bio ersity loss interact synergistically) and important demographic and geographic differences in specialists’ perspectives and estimates. Experts from groups that are underrepresented in bio ersity science, including women and those from the Global South, recommended different priorities for conservation solutions, with less emphasis on acquiring new protected areas, and provided higher estimates of bio ersity loss and its impacts. This may in part be because they disproportionately study the most highly threatened taxa and habitats. Front Ecol Environ 2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-05-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-023-37194-5
Abstract: Causal effects of bio ersity on ecosystem functions can be estimated using experimental or observational designs — designs that pose a tradeoff between drawing credible causal inferences from correlations and drawing generalizable inferences. Here, we develop a design that reduces this tradeoff and revisits the question of how plant species ersity affects productivity. Our design leverages longitudinal data from 43 grasslands in 11 countries and approaches borrowed from fields outside of ecology to draw causal inferences from observational data. Contrary to many prior studies, we estimate that increases in plot-level species richness caused productivity to decline: a 10% increase in richness decreased productivity by 2.4%, 95% CI [−4.1, −0.74]. This contradiction stems from two sources. First, prior observational studies incompletely control for confounding factors. Second, most experiments plant fewer rare and non-native species than exist in nature. Although increases in native, dominant species increased productivity, increases in rare and non-native species decreased productivity, making the average effect negative in our study. By reducing the tradeoff between experimental and observational designs, our study demonstrates how observational studies can complement prior ecological experiments and inform future ones.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 05-04-2023
Abstract: As Earth’s climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on bio ersity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in bio ersity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta- ersity) for angiosperm trees worldwide. We found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was strongly associated with lower spatial turnover (species replacements) and higher nestedness (richness changes) components of beta- ersity across all three bio ersity facets. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional turnover was lower and nestedness higher than random expectations based on taxonomic beta- ersity in regions that experienced large temperature change, reflecting phylogenetically and functionally selective processes in species replacement, extinction, and colonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results suggest that future human-driven climate change could cause local homogenization and reduction in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional ersity of angiosperm trees worldwide.
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 28-05-2021
Abstract: Invasive alien species pose major threats to bio ersity and ecosystems. However, identifying drivers of invasion success has been challenging, in part because species can achieve invasiveness in different ways, each corresponding to different aspects of demographics and distribution. Employing a multidimensional perspective of invasiveness to Europe’s alien flora, we find species generally fall along an axis from overall poor invaders to super invaders that become abundant, widespread, and invade erse habitats. Some species that deviate from this pattern are recently introduced and still spreading, but others represent atypical forms of invasiveness. In addition to identifying species traits and ecological circumstances associated with super invaders (e.g., intercontinental introductions), we explore drivers in atypical invasions, providing increased clarity into invasion processes.
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 16-06-2022
Abstract: Safeguarding Earth’s tree ersity is a conservation priority due to the importance of trees for bio ersity and ecosystem functions and services such as carbon sequestration. Here, we improve the foundation for effective conservation of global tree ersity by analyzing a recently developed database of tree species covering 46,752 species. We quantify range protection and anthropogenic pressures for each species and develop conservation priorities across taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional ersity dimensions. We also assess the effectiveness of several influential proposed conservation prioritization frameworks to protect the top 17% and top 50% of tree priority areas. We find that an average of 50.2% of a tree species’ range occurs in 110-km grid cells without any protected areas (PAs), with 6,377 small-range tree species fully unprotected, and that 83% of tree species experience nonnegligible human pressure across their range on average. Protecting high-priority areas for the top 17% and 50% priority thresholds would increase the average protected proportion of each tree species’ range to 65.5% and 82.6%, respectively, leaving many fewer species (2,151 and 2,010) completely unprotected. The priority areas identified for trees match well to the Global 200 Ecoregions framework, revealing that priority areas for trees would in large part also optimize protection for terrestrial bio ersity overall. Based on range estimates for ,000 tree species, our findings show that a large proportion of tree species receive limited protection by current PAs and are under substantial human pressure. Improved protection of bio ersity overall would also strongly benefit global tree ersity.
No related grants have been discovered for Akira Mori.