Faculty Publications

Comments

First published in Communications Biology, v8 (2025) published by Springer Nature DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07882-7

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Keywords

Biodiversity, Grassland ecology

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Communications Biology

Volume

8

First Page

1

Last Page

10

Abstract

Forbs (“wildflowers”) are important contributors to grassland biodiversity but are vulnerable to environmental changes. In a factorial experiment at 94 sites on 6 continents, we test the global generality of several broad predictions: (1) Forb cover and richness decline under nutrient enrichment, particularly nitrogen enrichment. (2) Forb cover and richness increase under herbivory by large mammals. (3) Forb richness and cover are less affected by nutrient enrichment and herbivory in more arid climates, because water limitation reduces the impacts of competition with grasses. (4) Forb families will respond differently to nutrient enrichment and mammalian herbivory due to differences in nutrient requirements. We find strong evidence for the first, partial support for the second, no support for the third, and support for the fourth prediction. Our results underscore that anthropogenic nitrogen addition is a major threat to grassland forbs, but grazing under high herbivore intensity can offset these nutrient effects.

Department

Department of Biology

Original Publication Date

3-15-2025

Object Description

1 PDF File

DOI of published version

10.1038/s42003-025-07882-7

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Copyright

©2025 The Author(s)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download
Published Version

Comments?

Share

COinS