Michael Kleyer

Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg · Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences (IBU)

Salt marshes are dynamic systems whose landscape structure and resilience to disturbance depend on bio‐geomorphological interactions. The ecological niches of salt marsh plants are asserted to be organized along an elevational gradient, determining the impact of abiotic factors such as soil aeration, flooding, and salinity, which generate the typic...

Einleitung und Problemstellung Die Milchviehhaltung erwirtschaftet aktuell über ihren Deckungsbeitrag den größten Anteil der landwirtschaftlichen Wertschöpfung der Region Wesermarsch (Niedersachsen). Weidehaltung ist eine verbreitete Nutzungsform auf den hier vorherrschenden kohlenstoffreichen Böden. Überlegungen zur Wiedervernässung dieser Böden a...

Climate change is leading to species redistributions. In the tundra biome, shrubs are generally expanding, but not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species, and the characteristics that may determine success or failure, have not yet been fully identified. Here, we investigate whether past abundance changes, curre...

Tidal marshes are dynamic systems whose lateral expansion depends on various biologically, physically, and geomorpho-logically controlled small-and large-scale feedback networks. Due to the bimodal existence of two landscape states at the tidal marsh edge (vegetated tidal marsh flat and bare tidal flat), and the high wave energy affecting the forem...

Here we provide the ‘Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset’, containing species mean values for six vascular plant traits. Together, these traits –plant height, stem specific density, leaf area, leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen content per dry mass, and diaspore (seed or spore) mass – define the primary axes of variation in plant form...

Climate change is leading to a species redistributions. In the tundra biome, many shrub species are expanding into new areas, a process known as shrubification. However, not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species (those projected to expand and contract their ranges, and/or those that have increased or decreased...

The current climate crisis is associated with rising sea levels, which raises the concerning prospect of losing coastal ecosystems, such as salt marshes. Where inland migration is impossible, salt marshes will only persist if their vertical accretion exceeds the rate of sea-level rise. Positive vertical accretion is mainly driven by sedimentation,...

The influence of island dynamics and characteristics on taxonomic diversity, particularly species richness, are well studied. Yet, our knowledge on the influence of island dynamics and characteristics on other facets of diversity, namely functional and phylogenetic diversity, is limited, constraining our understanding of assembly processes on islan...

We present a framework to relate the provision of multiple, interacting ecosystem services to climate change and land use adaptation, by combining hydrological process models with statistical species’ distribution models and transfer functions to upscale plot data to the landscape scale. Functional traits of the projected plant communities predict...

Many experiments have shown that biodiversity enhances ecosystem functioning. However, we have little understanding of how environmental heterogeneity shapes the effect of diversity on ecosystem functioning and to what extent this diversity effect is mediated by variation in species richness or species turnover. This knowledge is crucial to scaling...

Although well recognised in ecology, the concept of ecosystem services is still not widely applied in practical environmental planning. Environmental planning often has to evaluate whole landscapes in a spatially explicit way, including marginal landscape elements for which data on provisional, regulatory, and cultural ecosystem properties and serv...

Patterns of insect diversity along elevational gradients are well described in ecology. However, it remains little tested how variation in the quantity, quality, and diversity of food resources influence these patterns. Here we analyzed the direct and indirect effects of climate, food quantity (estimated by net primary productivity), quality (varia...

Metacommunity ecology currently lacks a consistent functional trait perspective across trophic levels. To foster new cross‐taxa experiments and field studies, we present hypotheses on how three trait dimensions change along gradients of density of individuals, resource supply and habitat isolation. The movement dimension refers to the ability to mo...

Estuaries are highly productive ecosystems that play an important role in carbon fixing. The amount of carbon fixed by temperate brackish marshes depends, among others, on the biomass produced, its decomposition and the organic carbon stored in the soil. Here, we assumed that the functional trait composition of the vegetation both responded to envi...

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from natural forests in sub-Saharan Africa provide significant benefits to rural communities. In this study conducted on the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, we assumed that the extraction of NTFPs by local communities is related to sex, income, age, household size, and distance from the forest. We intervie...

The ecosystem-based management (EBM) philosophy draws upon the principle that holistic understanding of the system to be governed needs to guide the decision-making process. However, empirical evidence is growing that knowledge integration is still a main bottleneck for EBM decision-makers. This paper argues that transdisciplinary knowledge managem...

Questions How are dispersal processes, abiotic and biotic interactions determining the initial salt marsh plant community establishment and development when connectivity is different? We aim to answer this question by analysing the spatial and temporal patterns of plant establishment along the environmental gradient at two connectivity settings. L...

The majority of variation in six traits critical to the growth, survival and reproduction of plant species is thought to be organised along just two dimensions, corresponding to strategies of plant size and resource acquisition. However, it is unknown whether global plant trait relationships extend to climatic extremes, and if these interspecific r...

Aim Intraspecific trait variation (ITV) within natural plant communities can be large, influencing local ecological processes and dynamics. Here, we shed light on how ITV in vegetative and floral traits responds to large‐scale abiotic and biotic gradients (i.e., climate and species richness). Specifically, we tested whether associations of ITV with...

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 sp...

Temperature, primary productivity, plant functional traits, and herbivore abundances are considered key predictors of leaf herbivory but their direct and indirect contributions to community‐level herbivory are not well understood along broad climatic gradients. Here, we determined elevational herbivory patterns and used a path analytical approach t...

The ecosystem services concept has been introduced as a decisive approach to include ecosystem functioning in land-use planning and stakeholder-driven sustainable development. Early integration of stakeholders in participatory processes in the nexus of ecosystem services, climate adaption, and land-use management is still a demanding challenge. Thi...

Agriculture and the exploitation of natural resources have transformed tropical mountain ecosystems across the world, and the consequences of these transformations for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are largely unknown1–3. Conclusions that are derived from studies in non-mountainous areas are not suitable for predicting the effects of land-...

Variations in the stable isotopic composition of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) of fresh leaves, litter, and topsoils were used to characterize soil organic matter dynamics of 12 tropical ecosystems in the Mount Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania. We studied a total of 60 sites distributed along five individual elevational transects (860–4550 m a.s.l....

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key r...

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key q...

Variations in the stable isotopic composition of carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) of fresh leaves, litter and topsoils were used to characterize soil organic matter dynamics of twelve tropical ecosystems in the Mount Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania. We studied a total of 60 sites distributed along five individual elevational transects (860–4550ma.s.l...

Field experiments investigating biodiversity and ecosystem functioning require the observation of abiotic parameters, especially when carried out in the intertidal zone. An experiment for biodiversity–ecosystem functioning was set up in the intertidal zone of the back-barrier salt marsh of Spiekeroog Island in the German Bight. Here, we report the...

Recent empirical and theoretical approaches have called for an understanding of the processes underpinning ecosystem service provision. An increasing number of studies is showing how key plant functional traits respond to environmental gradients and subsequently explain ecosystem properties in several systems. However, little is known concerning ho...

Correlations among plant traits often reflect important trade‐offs or allometric relationships in biological functions like carbon gain, support, water uptake, and reproduction that are associated with different plant organs. Whether trait correlations can be aggregated to “spectra” or “leading dimensions,” whether these dimensions are consistent a...

Species’ functional traits set the blueprint for pair-wise interactions in ecological networks. Yet, it is unknown to what extent the functional diversity of plant and animal communities controls network assembly along environmental gradients in real-world ecosystems. Here we address this question with a unique dataset of mutualistic bird–fruit, bi...

It is still a challenge to provide spatially explicit predictions of climate parameters in African regions of complex relief, where meteorological information is scarce. Here we predict rainfall, temperature, and reference evapotranspiration (ETo) for the southern Mkomazi River Basin in Northeastern Tanzania, East Africa, by means of regression-bas...

Aims We tested whether plant species niche breadths decrease with increasing species richness due to competition on temperature, precipitation and disturbance gradients. We assumed that niche optima, niche breadth and niche volume are related to plant functional traits, indicating competitive ability and adaptation to environmental stress. Finally,...

Field experiments investigating biodiversity and ecosystem functioning require observation of abiotic parameters, especially when carried out in the intertidal zone. An experiment for biodiversity-ecosystem functioning at the intersection of land and sea was set up in the intertidal zone of the back-barrier salt marsh of Spiekeroog Island in the Ge...

Compared to other plant life‐forms, epiphytes remain understudied. Understanding the responses of epiphytes to changing environmental conditions is necessary to predict changes in ecosystem functioning especially in subtropical and tropical regions. We investigated the functional traits of epiphytes along a large elevation gradient on Mount Kiliman...

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key q...

Land management in coastal areas has to cope with impacts of climate change and sea level rise. In Germany, landscape plans assess and organize the spatial allocation of land use as an environmental contribution to general spatial planning. Collaborative planning processes are important to develop sustainable and ecosystem-based strategies to make...

Shallow tidal coasts are characterised by shifting tidal flats and emerging or eroding islands above the high tide line. Salt marsh vegetation colonising new habitats distant from existing marshes are an ideal model to investigate metacommunity theory. We installed a set of 12 experimental salt marsh islands made from metal cages on a tidal flat in...

Competitor, stress‐tolerator, ruderal ( CSR ) theory is a prominent plant functional strategy scheme previously applied to local floras. Globally, the wide geographic and phylogenetic coverage of available values of leaf area ( LA ), leaf dry matter content ( LDMC ) and specific leaf area ( SLA ) (representing, respectively, interspecific variation...

Open Access at http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/6/976 While most climate change vulnerability assessments focus on regional or city-levels, this paper studies villages and their different forms of vulnerability vis-à-vis climate change. In the African context, the village level proves to be central for land-use related decision-making given the tra...

Agricultural land use imposes a major disturbance on ecosystems worldwide, thus greatly modifying the taxonomic and functional composition of plant communities. However, mechanisms of community assembly, as assessed by plant functional traits, are not well known for dryland ecosystems under agricultural disturbance. Here we investigated trait respo...

A field-portable list of mean CSR strategies for common plant species, adapted from Table S1 of Pierce et al. (2017) Functional Ecology 31: 444–457 doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12722 for use on smartphones

Questions How do community‐weighted means of traits ( CWM ) and functional dispersion ( FD is), a measure of trait variability, change in response to gradients of temperature, precipitation, soil nutrients and disturbance? Is the decrease in trait similarity between plots continuous or discontinuous? Is species turnover between plots linked to trai...

‘StrateFy’, the global vascular plant CSR calculator tool from Pierce et al. (2017; Funct. Ecol. 31(2), 444-457) in Microsoft Excel format.

The effect-response framework states that plant functional traits link the abiotic environment to ecosystem functioning. One ecosystem property is the body size of the animals living in the system, which is assumed to depend on temperature or resource availability, among others. For primary consumers, resource availability may directly be related t...

Mean temperature, annual precipitation and disturbance the vegetation types at Mount Kilimanjaro. The sixty plots from twelve vegetation types investigated in this study represent a large part of the habitats present at the Southern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Disturbance was calculated including various aspects of anthropogenic changes...

Pearson correlations between plant functional traits and leaf economics. Leaf economics is the first axis of a PCA including specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), stem specific density (SSD), leaf nitrogen per unit mass (leaf Nmass), and leaf phosphorus per unit mass (leaf Pmass). (PDF)

Coefficients, P-values, generalized R2 values, and model probability of the structural equation models. The relationships between the abiotic environment (precipitation, disturbance), total plant biomass, and leaf economics were the same for all models and coefficients and P-values are given only once. All variables were standardized prior to analy...

Plant functional traits, animal body size CWMs, bee cumulative intertegular distance (ITD), and moth cumulative body length. Community-weighted means are given for each of the sixty plots. Bee ITD and bird mass are highly correlated with body size, and have been referred as such in the text. Variables were scaled prior to analysis. NAs indicate no...

Disturbance index calculation. (PDF)

Species conservation and forage production are both important, yet conflicting components of sustainable grassland management. We modeled forage production and conservation value as dependents in a chain of responses and effects, starting with abiotic environmental conditions that affect the spatial distribution of land uses and biotic ecosystem pr...

Ecological research produces a tremendous amount of data, but the diversity in scales and topics covered and the ways in which studies are carried out result in large numbers of small, idiosyncratic data sets using heterogeneous terminologies. Such heterogeneity can be attributed, in part, to a lack of standards for acquiring, organizing and descri...

We asked whether different stakeholders perceive ecosystem services in similar ways and how these perceptions relate to measured ecosystem properties. Farmers and conservationists were asked to state (1) their preference for ecosystem services and (2) their perception about the value of several grassland vegetation units in providing these services...

The factors determining gradients of biodiversity are a fundamental yet unresolved topic in ecology. While diversity gradients have been analysed for numerous single taxa, progress towards general explanatory models has been hampered by limitations in the phylogenetic coverage of past studies. By parallel sampling of 25 major plant and animal taxa...

Supplementary Figures, Supplementary Tables, Supplementary Methods and Supplementary References

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. References Appendix SUMMARY: Plant biologists often grow plants in growth chambers or glasshouses with the ultimate aim to understand or improve plant performance in the field. What is often overlooked is how results from controlled conditions translate back to field situations. A meta-analysis showed that lab-grow...

Numerous studies show that increasing species richness leads to higher ecosystem productivity. This effect is often attributed to more efficient portioning of multiple resources in communities with higher numbers of competing species, indicating the role of resource supply and stoichiometry for biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. Here...

Ecosystems managed for production of biomass are often characterized by low biodiversity because management aims to optimize single ecosystem functions (i.e. yield) involving deliberate selection of species or cultivars. In consequence, considerable differences in observed plant species richness and productivity remain across systems, and the drive...

Despite the growing interest in ecosystem services provided by intertidal wetlands, we lack sufficient understanding of the processes that determine the seaward extent of salt marsh vegetation on tidal flats. With the present study, we aim to establish a globally valid demarcation between tidal flats and salt marsh vegetation in relation to tidal r...

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Earth is home to a remarkable diversity of plant forms and life histories, yet comparatively few essential trait combinations have proved evolutionarily viable in today’s terrestrial biosphere. By analysing worldwide variation in six major traits critical to growth, survival and reproduction within the largest sample of vascular plant species ever...