Effects of plant species richness on plant-herbivore and multitrophic interactions
Christoph Scherber
dept. Crop Sciences, Agroecology, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany
Biodiversity is rapidly declining, yet we still don't know if this decline leads to consistent changes in ecosystems. While the past decades have seen enormous efforts to study the effects of biodiversity loss on ecosystem processes, many studies still focused on plant productivity and related variables. Thus, the response of many components of terrestrial ecosystems to biodiversity loss have remained largely unexplored.
In this talk, I will take a systems perspective on plant biodiversity and show how different groups of organisms respond to changes in plant species richness. From soil microbes to aboveground pollinators, show that losses of plant diversity cascade up and down in food webs. Biodiversity loss is negative for many groups and processes, but there are exceptions.
In conclusion, the studies I present in the talk show that plants indeed form the basis for aboveground and belowground food webs, and that losses in plant diversity ultimately lead to indirect co-extinctions in many different groups of organisms.
In this talk, I will take a systems perspective on plant biodiversity and show how different groups of organisms respond to changes in plant species richness. From soil microbes to aboveground pollinators, show that losses of plant diversity cascade up and down in food webs. Biodiversity loss is negative for many groups and processes, but there are exceptions.
In conclusion, the studies I present in the talk show that plants indeed form the basis for aboveground and belowground food webs, and that losses in plant diversity ultimately lead to indirect co-extinctions in many different groups of organisms.
