Explanipedia

Widespread underestimation of rain-induced soil carbon emissions from global drylands Open

N. Nguyen, Mirco Migliavacca, Maoya Bassiouni, Dennis Baldocchi, Laureano Gherardi , et al. · 2025

Dryland carbon fluxes, particularly those driven by ecosystem respiration, are highly sensitive to water availability and rain pulses. However, the magnitude of rain-induced carbon emissions remains unclear globally. Here we quantify the i…

Soil buffers the impact of precipitation variability on ecosystem function Open

H. Wang, Maoya Bassiouni, Yanghui Kang, Sami W. Rifai, Laureano Gherardi , et al. · 2025

Interactions among nutrients govern the global grassland biomass–precipitation relationship Open

Philip A. Fay, Laureano Gherardi, Laura Yahdjian, Peter B. Adler, Jonathan D. Bakker , et al. · 2025

Ecosystems are experiencing changing global patterns of mean annual precipitation (MAP) and enrichment with multiple nutrients that potentially colimit plant biomass production. In grasslands, mean aboveground plant biomass is closely rela…

Drivers of woody dominance across global drylands Open

Lucio Biancari, Martı́n R. Aguiar, David J. Eldridge, Gastón R. Oñatibia, Yoann Le Bagousse‐Pinguet , et al. · 2024

Increases in the abundance of woody species have been reported to affect the provisioning of ecosystem services in drylands worldwide. However, it is virtually unknown how multiple biotic and abiotic drivers, such as climate, grazing, and …

The influence of belowground nematode herbivory on carbon allocation in drought-prone ecosystems Open

André L.C. Franco, Laureano Gherardi · 2024

To understand carbon dynamics and how it is affected by ongoing climate change, we need a better appreciation of the belowground ecological interactions driving plant allocation patterns and ecosystem carbon fixation. It has become increas…

Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally Open

Melinda D. Smith, Kate Wilkins, Martin C. Holdrege, Peter A. Wilfahrt, Scott L. Collins , et al. · 2024

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of short-term (~1 y) drought events—the most common duration of drought—globally. Yet the impact of this intensification of drought on ecosystem functioning remains poorly resolved. T…

Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands Open

Fernando T. Maestre, Yoann Le Bagousse‐Pinguet, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo, David J. Eldridge, Hugo Sáiz , et al. · 2022

Grazing represents the most extensive use of land worldwide. Yet its impacts on ecosystem services remain uncertain because pervasive interactions between grazing pressure, climate, soil properties, and biodiversity may occur but have neve…

Dryland soil mycobiome response to long‐term precipitation variability depends on host type Open

Nicolas L. Louw, Laureano Gherardi, Osvaldo E. Sala, Y. Anny Chung · 2022

Climate change is projected to cause shifts in precipitation regimes globally, leading to intensified periods of precipitation and droughts. Most studies that have explored the influence of changing precipitation regimes on ecosystems have…

The long and the short of it: Mechanisms of synchronous and compensatory dynamics across temporal scales Open

Lauren G. Shoemaker, Lauren M. Hallett, Lei Zhao, Daniel C. Reuman, Shaopeng Wang , et al. · 2022

Synchronous dynamics (fluctuations that occur in unison) are universal phenomena with widespread implications for ecological stability. Synchronous dynamics can amplify the destabilizing effect of environmental variability on ecosystem fun…

Data and R code from "Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands" Open

Fernando T. Maestre, Yoann Le Bagousse‐Pinguet, David J. Eldridge, Hugo Sáiz, Enrique Valencia , et al. · 2022

There are two zip files with the data and R scripts used in the article "Maestre, F. T. et al. 2022. Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands. Science 378, 915–920". The file "Main_Data_code.zip" contains the data and R c…

Writing mathematical ecology: A guide for authors and readers Open

Lauren G. Shoemaker, Jonathan A. Walter, Laureano Gherardi, Melissa H. DeSiervo, Nathan I. Wisnoski · 2021

Mathematical techniques have a long and rich history in ecology, often serving as a virtual laboratory to test hypotheses, generate novel predictions, and investigate underlying ecological mechanisms. Recently, novel simulation techniques,…

The spatial synchrony of species richness and its relationship to ecosystem stability Open

Jonathan A. Walter, Lauren G. Shoemaker, Nina K. Lany, Max C. N. Castorani, Samuel B. Fey , et al. · 2021

Synchrony is broadly important to population and community dynamics due to its ubiquity and implications for extinction dynamics, system stability, and species diversity. Investigations of synchrony in community ecology have tended to focu…

Negative effects of nitrogen override positive effects of phosphorus on grassland legumes worldwide Open

Pedro M. Tognetti, Suzanne M. Prober, Selene Báez, Enrique J. Chaneton, Jennifer Firn , et al. · 2021

Significance Predicting the effects of anthropogenic nutrient enrichment on plant communities is critical for managing implications for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Plant functional types that fix atmospheric nitrogen (e.g., legume…

Soil nematode genera diversity and precipitation changes in grasslands Open

André L.C. Franco, Pingting Guan, Shuyan Cui, Cecilia de Tomasel, Laureano Gherardi , et al. · 2021

During the 2016-2017 growing season, a survey of soil nematode diversity at the genus level was conducted across three grassland sites in the Great Plains region to investigate whether changes in precipitation through time and space affect…

Issue Information Open