Marcelo Sternberg

• Professor
• Head Plant Ecology Lab - Full Professor at Tel Aviv University

Plant chemical composition is a trait gaining increasing importance in plant ecology. However, there is limited research on the patterns and drivers of its variation among different plant functional groups and bioclimatic regions. We conducted an analysis of ionomes utilising X‐ray fluorescence on 83 plant species from four distinct functional grou...

The global dependence on a narrow range of crops poses significant risks to food security, and exploring alternative crops that enhance agrobiodiversity is crucial. Lupinus pilosus L., a wild lupin species native to Israel, represents a promising candidate for domestication due to its large seeds and high protein content. This study is the first to...

Silicon (Si) content in plant tissues is considered a functional trait that can provide multiple morpho‐physiological benefits to plant individuals. However, it is still unclear whether and how these individual benefits extend to plant community processes and ecosystem functioning. Here we investigated how plant Si content is associated with plant...

Invasive alien plants (IAPs) are a great challenge for biodiversity conservation and management. Multi-temporal landscape analysis has a great potential for describing plant invasion, however conservation solutions accounting of landscape dynamics are still limited. This research aims to explore the spatial-temporal pattern of the IAP Carpobrotus s...

Drought is expected to increase in temperate regions in the coming decades due to global climate change and will strongly affect nitrogen (N) transformation and balance. However, the underlying mechanisms (soil microenvironment vs. biotic community) of rainfall reduction induced changes in soil N transformation rates, and whether the responses of s...

Alkaloids play an essential role in protecting plants against herbivores. Humans can also benefit from the pharmacological effects of these compounds. Plants produce an immense variety of structurally different alkaloids, including quinolizidine alkaloids, a group of bi-, tri-, and tetracyclic compounds produced by Lupinus species. Various lupin sp...

Invasive plant species (IPS) pose a significant threat to natural ecosystems, causing substantial global biodiversity loss. Despite the fact that only a few species invade Israel's coastal dunes, their impact on landscape and ecosystems is notable. The invasive plant Heterotheca subaxillaris , introduced a few decades ago, has aggressively spread...

Here, we developed a new Pasture Quality Index (PQI) that indicates the nutritional quality of pastures based on their nutritional value and the composition of plant functional groups of the vegetation. We applied the model on a regional scale using VENμS satellite data.

Litter decomposition often represents the largest carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) input into the soil and thereby supports soil nutrition cycling function. Common mycelial networks (CMNs) can promote soil C and N trades during the litter decomposition process. However, the degree to which this promotion depends on abiotic variables , such as drought, r...

The soil seed bank is a major component of plant communities. However, long-term analyses of the dynamics of the seed bank and the ensuing vegetation are rare. Here, we studied the dynamics in plant communities with high dominance of annuals in Mediterranean, semiarid, and arid ecosystems for nine consecutive years. For annuals, we hypothesized tha...

Geomorphic assessments are crucial to understanding stream processes, defining ecological stream conditions, and improving management and restoration recommendations. This project presents the first systematic geomorphic assessment of a perennial stream in Israel. The morphological quality index (MQI) protocol was applied in 2017–2018 to test its a...

Understanding shrub effects on plant litter arthropod community structure in contrasting semiarid and arid grassland ecosystems could lead to the promotion of biodiversity conservation and sustainable management in afforested plantations. An investigation of litter arthropod abundance and diversity beneath the shrub canopy and in open spaces betwee...

Researchers use both experiments and observations to study the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, but results from these contrasting approaches have not been systematically compared for droughts. Using a meta-analysis and accounting for potential confounding factors, we demonstrate that aboveground biomass responded only about half as much to...

Purpose Climate models predict shifts in precipitation patterns characterized by increased precipitation amount and decreased frequency for semi-arid grasslands in northeast China. However, under these novel climatic conditions, potential differences in plant biomass and its allocation among different degraded grasslands remain unclear. Methods We...

Rangeland management requires frequent and accurate estimation of aboveground vegetation biomass (AGB) as a proxy of forage production. However, traditional methods for AGB measurement are time-consuming and only provide a low number of spatiotemporal measurements. The newly developed remote sensing platforms such as UAVs and new generation satelli...

Biological invasion is a major contributor to local and global biodiversity loss, in particular in dune ecosystems. In this study we evaluated current and future cover expansion of the invasive plant species, Heterotheca subaxillaris, and Acacia saligna, in the Mediterranean coastal plain of Israel. This is the first effort to quantify current surf...

The change in allele frequencies within a population over time represents a fundamental process of evolution. By monitoring allele frequencies, we can analyze the effects of natural selection and genetic drift on populations. To efficiently track time-resolved genetic change, large experimental or wild populations can be sequenced as pools of indiv...

Climate and land-use change profoundly affect plant species distribution (SD) and composition, and the impact of these processes is expected to increase in the coming years. As a proxy of global changes, knowledge of SD and diversity along climatic gradients is essential to determine the efforts needed for species conservation. Plant spectral diver...

Aims Primary biomass production is a fundamental process for ecosystem functioning. Yet, little is known on the mechanisms driving temporal stability of biomass production in annual plant communities, particularly when subjected to highly variable environments and undergoing temporal changes in species composition. We aimed to disentangle the relat...

Purpose Climate models predict shifts in precipitation patterns characterized by increased precipitation amount and decreased frequency for semi-arid grasslands in northeast China. However, under these novel climatic conditions, potential differences in plant biomass and its allocation among different degraded grasslands remain unclear. Methods We...

Predicting responses of litter arthropods to future variation in precipitation is critical for understanding decomposition processes under global climate change. A field experiment on litter arthropods extracted from litterbags using Berlese-Tullgren funnels was conducted under simulated drought and increasing precipitation treatments at a semiarid...

Ecological theory predicts that the soil seed bank stabilizes the composition of annual plant communities in the face of environmental variability. However, long‐term data on the community dynamics in the seed bank and the standing vegetation are needed to test this prediction. We tested the hypothesis that the composition of the seed bank undergoe...

Main conclusion The dead husk is a vital component of the dispersal unit whose biochemical properties can be modified following exposure to drought. This might affect seed performance and fate, soil properties and consequently plant biodiversity. Abstract We investigated the effects of extreme drought on the dispersal unit (DU) properties of winte...

The conversion from primary forest to agriculture drives widespread changes that have the potential to modify the hydroclimatology of the Xingu River Basin. Moreover, climate impacts over eastern Amazonia have been strongly related to pasture and soybean expansion. This study carries out a remote-sensing, spatial-temporal approach to analyze inter-...

Aims Climate change in the eastern Mediterranean region will have a strong impact on ecosystem functioning and plant community dynamics due to a reduction in annual rainfall and increased variability. We aim to understand the role of seed banks as potential buffers against climatic uncertainty determined by climate change. Methods We examined germ...

Question: Are seed mass and shape related to persistence in the soil seed bank among 54 species of the Israeli flora? Search method: Persistence was determined by soil seed bank investigations in which the fraction of non-germinated viable seeds was regarded as the persistent soil seed bank. When seedling emergence had ceased but before new seeds w...

Ecological theory predicts that the soil seed bank stabilises the composition of annual plant communities in the face of environmental variability. However, long-term data on the community dynamics in the seed bank and the standing vegetation are needed to test this prediction. We tested the hypothesis that the composition of the seed bank undergoe...

Changes in rainfall amounts and patterns have been observed and are expected to continue in the near future with potentially significant ecological and societal consequences. Modelling vegetation responses to changes in rainfall is thus crucial to project water and carbon cycles in the future. In this study, we present the results of a new model-da...

Aim Plant species continue to be moved outside of their native range by human activities. Here, we aim to determine whether, once introduced, plants assimilate into native communities or whether they aggregate, thus forming mosaics of native‐ and alien‐rich communities. Alien species might aggregate in their non‐native range owing to shared habitat...

Critical examination of the approaches ecologists employ to understand complex ecological systems is integral to advancing our science. Recently, Korell et al. (2019) argued that climate change experiments would yield more relevant information on future functioning of ecosystems if the treatments imposed more closely reflected model‐projected clima...

Questions What are the effects of extreme drought on above‐ground and below‐ground net primary production (ANPP and BNPP, respectively) of an annual plant community in a Mediterranean shrubland? How do annual plant communities in Mediterranean shrublands respond to extreme drought, in terms of changes in their species composition, species richness,...

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...

Through litter decomposition enormous amount of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litte...

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to under-stand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litt...

Biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning against extreme climatic events, but few experiments have explicitly tested this. Here, we present the first multi-site biodiversity×drought manipulation experiment to examine drought resistance and recovery at five temperate and Mediterranean grassland sites. Aboveground biomass production declined by...

Understanding which plant traits confer invasiveness has been a central question in biological invasions research. Heterotheca subaxillaris (camphor-weed), an American plant, is an important invader of coastal sand dunes in Israel. Nevertheless, there has been no comprehensive comparative analysis of H. subaxillaris plant traits from native versus...

Question What are the controls on biomass production and species diversity in Mediterranean grasslands? Do medium‐term (i.e. inter‐annual) precipitation legacy effects on biomass production and diversity occur in these grasslands? Location Karei Deshe Experimental Range Station, Upper Galilee, northern Israel. Methods We used a long‐term (21‐r) c...

Plant litter decomposition, a key process in element cycling, will be affected by climate change in drylands. However, much uncertainty remains on the factors affecting decay rates. Here we studied litter decomposition along an aridity gradient, while combining rainfall manipulations and a long-term ecological research site. Results showed that dec...

full text : http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/514680/ Field experiments that expose terrestrial ecosystems to climate change factors by manipulations are expensive to maintain, and typically only last a few years. Plant biomass is commonly used to assess responses to climate treatments and to predict climate change impacts. However, response to the treatment...

Climate change scenarios for the eastern Mediterranean region predict an increase in autumn and summer temperatures and a decrease in rainfall in winter. This will lead to increasing drought conditions to the vegetation. Considering that water availability in arid and semi-arid environments is a limiting factor for plant growth, water-use efficienc...

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of droughts in the Mediterranean region, thus causing an increase in water deficit in natural ecosystems. The goal of this study is to evaluate changes in primary production, plant community composition, diversity and plant functional traits induced by extreme drought. We aim to ob...

Well defined productivity-precipitation relationships of ecosystems are needed as benchmarks for the validation of land-models used for future projections. The productivity-precipitation relationship may be studied in two ways: the spatial approach relates differences in productivity to those in precipitation among sites along a precipitation gradi...

Tredennick et al. criticize one of our statistical analyses and emphasize the low explanatory power of models relating productivity to diversity. These criticisms do not detract from our key findings, including evidence consistent with the unimodal constraint relationship predicted by the humped-back model and evidence of scale sensitivities in the...

Laanisto and Hutchings claim that the local species pool is a more important predictor of local plant species richness than biomass and that when the species pool is considered, there is no hump-backed relationship between biomass and richness. However, we show that by calculating a more appropriate measure of species pool, community completeness,...

Questions: Can theory about plant–plant interactions along climate gradients help us predict how climate change will affect shrub establishment? How does a predicted reduction in rainfall affect the outcome of the interactions between shrub seedlings and herbaceous plants in a dryland ecosystem? Location: Three field sites along a rainfall gradient...

Fire severity varies widely among and within wildfires. The objective of this work was to test the effectiveness of granular polyacrylamide (PAM) to reduce erosion in a Calcic Regosol exposed to different fire conditions. Three treatments were selected representing disturbances that coexist after a wildfire: unburned, low-moderate severity direct f...

Weeds are currently present in a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. Although the beginning of their evolution is largely unknown, researchers assumed that they developed in tandem with cultivation since the appearance of agricultural habitats some 12,000 years ago. These rapidly-evolving plants invaded the human disturbed areas and thrived in the...

The search for predictions of species diversity across environmental gradients has challenged ecologists for decades. The humped-back model (HBM) suggests that plant diversity peaks at intermediate productivity; at low productivity few species can tolerate the environmental stresses, and at high productivity a few highly competitive species dominat...

Global climate change is causing the Mediterranean coastal area of Israel to gradually acquire tropical characteristics. Rising sea surface temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean basin have facilitated the introduction, settlement and establishment of hundreds of alien species (Zenetos et al. 2012). The vast majority of these exotic species are...

A 17-yr grazing trial was conducted in the eastern Galilee of Israel to quantify trade-offs among the responses of pasture and livestock productivity, duration of grazing, amount of supplementary feed, and profitability to higher stocking density during the growing season of a Mediterranean grassland. Treatments included two stocking densities and...

Projected global change will increase the level of land-use and environmental stressors such as drought and grazing, particularly in drylands. Still, combined effects of drought and grazing on plant production are poorly understood, thus hampering adequate projections and development of mitigation strategies. We used a large, cross-continental data...

IntroductionThe rapidly-growing world population, over-exploitation of natural resources, climate change and land-use changes stimulate ecological research at all scales. Within this complex reality, ecological research should aim to project future ecosystem states and processes over time scales of decades and centuries, and spatially from the plot...

strongly reduce ANPP in arid and semi-arid sites. Moreo-ver, the effect of reduced precipitation on the CV of ANPP along the entire gradient may be modified by changes in inter-annual variability in MAP. Reduced precipitation combined with increased precipitation variability was the scenario most relevant to the wet end of the gradient, due to the...

A synthesis of a long-term (19 years) study assessing the effects of cattle grazing on the structure and composition of a Mediterranean grassland in north-eastern Israel is presented, with new insights on the response of the vegetation to grazing management and rainfall. We hypothesized that the plant community studied would be resistant to high gr...

Global climate change is causing the Mediterranean coastal area of Israel to gradually acquire tropical characteristics. Rising sea surface temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean basin have facilitated the introduction, settlement and establishment of hundreds of alien species (Zenetos et al. 2012). The vast majority of these exotic species are...

The Mediterranean coast of Israel is well known as a hotspot of invasive marine species, mostly from the Indian and Pacific oceans. Here, we report the first occur-rence of the red seaweed Laurencia chondrioides in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Large quantities of this spe-cies were observed in the algal drift on the sandy shores as well as on roc...

For evaluating climate change impacts on biodiversity, extensive experiments are urgently needed to complement popular non-mechanistic models which map future ecosystem properties onto their current climatic niche. Here, we experimentally test the main prediction of these models by means of a novel multi-site approach. We implement rainfall manipul...

One of the consequences of wildfires is the modification of the hydrology of the affected area, usually resulting in increased overland flow and soil erosion. In this work, we tested granular anionic polyacrylamide (PAM) to reduce post-fire soil erosion, and the mechanisms by which this polymer modifies infiltration rate (IR), runoff and soil loss....

Background & Aim: Grasslands are spatially and economically highly important for European agriculture and biodiversity. However, their species diversity and ecosystem functioning might increasingly be threatened by climate extremes and invasion dynamics. SIGNAL is a coordinated, distributed field and mesocosm experiment across a pan-European precip...

The Mediterranean region is both a global biodiversity hot spot and one of the biomes most strongly affected by human activities. Ecologists and land managers are increasingly required to advise on threats to biodiver-sity under foreseeable climate change. We used expert surveys to evaluate current understanding and uncertainties regarding climate...

Background/Question/Methods Climatic controls on biogeochemical cycles and primary productivity are particularly relevant in drylands (arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems) considering that their biological activity is mainly driven by water availability. The structure and functioning of drylands are highly affected by rainfall patterns....

Question: For over a century, ecologists have grappled with the question "what drives species diversity?" Urgent global issues such as loss of biodiversity and the relative importance of species richness for ecosystem function and services has heightened the relative importance of understanding processes that control spe-cies diversity. Here we pre...

Question For over a century, ecologists have grappled with the question “what drives species diversity?” Urgent global issues such as loss of biodiversity and the relative importance of species richness for ecosystem function and services has heightened the relative importance of understanding processes that control species diversity. Here we prese...

1.Many studies have identified relationships between plant reproductive behaviour and environmental conditions. However, they have all been based on cross-species analysis and take no account of the relative abundance of species with vegetation. 2.Using two reproductive traits – seed mass and dispersal vector – as examples, a range of previously id...

Predicting responses of plant communities to environmental changes is a key challenge in ecology. Here we examined climate-related mechanisms regulating seedling dynamics of a common Mediterranean shrub. Our objective was to analyze effects of water availability on seedling survival and to determine whether geographical gradients can serve as proxy...

Question: How well does a time-saving, qualitative sampling method compare with an intensive, quantitative sampling method in identifying the effects of reduction and cessation of cattle grazing on compositional change in a Mediterranean grassland? Location: Upper Galilee, northern Israel. Methods: Experimental treatments involved two levels of gra...

Climate change is predicted to alter the rainfall regime in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: total annual rainfall will decrease, while seasonal and inter-annual variation in rainfall will increase. Such changes in the rainfall regime could potentially lead to large-scale changes in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in the region. We cond...

There is a growing realization among scientists and policy makers that an increased understanding of today’s environmental issues requires international collaboration and data synthesis. Meta-analyses have served this role in ecology for more than a decade, but the different experimental methodologies researchers use can limit the strength of the m...

Wetting and drying cycles have been reported to have a positive effect on soil aggregation and improve the recovery of soil structure after a disturbance. Therefore, after wildfires, it is expected that drying periods between consecutive storms could modify runoff and soil loss patterns. At the same time, different fire conditions may coexist in a...

Question: How well does a time-saving, qualitative sampling method compare with an intensive, quantitative sampling method in identifying the effects of reduction and cessation of cattle grazing on compositional change in a Mediterranean grassland? Location: Upper Galilee, northern Israel. Methods: Experimental treatments involved two levels of gra...