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Hotspots of biogeochemical activity linked to aridity and plant traits across global drylands

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 30 April 2024

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Abstract

Perennial plants create productive and biodiverse hotspots, known as fertile islands, beneath their canopies. These hotspots largely determine the structure and functioning of drylands worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the factors controlling fertile islands under conditions of contrasting grazing by livestock, the most prevalent land use in drylands, remain virtually unknown. Here we evaluated the relative importance of grazing pressure and herbivore type, climate and plant functional traits on 24 soil physical and chemical attributes that represent proxies of key ecosystem services related to decomposition, soil fertility, and soil and water conservation. To do this, we conducted a standardized global survey of 288 plots at 88 sites in 25 countries worldwide. We show that aridity and plant traits are the major factors associated with the magnitude of plant effects on fertile islands in grazed drylands worldwide. Grazing pressure had little influence on the capacity of plants to support fertile islands. Taller and wider shrubs and grasses supported stronger island effects. Stable and functional soils tended to be linked to species-rich sites with taller plants. Together, our findings dispel the notion that grazing pressure or herbivore type are linked to the formation or intensification of fertile islands in drylands. Rather, our study suggests that changes in aridity, and processes that alter island identity and therefore plant traits, will have marked effects on how perennial plants support and maintain the functioning of drylands in a more arid and grazed world.

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Fig. 1: Average function for the 288 plots at 88 sites across global drylands and examples of fertile islands at selected sites.
Fig. 2: The fertile island effect, as measured with the RII, beneath perennial dryland plants for the 24 soil attributes measured across three functions.
Fig. 3: Impacts of recent grazing and climate on the fertile island effect.
Fig. 4: SEM assessing direct and indirect effects on the fertile island effect.

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Data availability

The data used for this study are available via Figshare67 at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25283074.v1. The other databases used in this study are: Global Aridity Index and Potential Evapotranspiration Climate Database v2 aridity database (https://cgiarcsi.community/2019/01/24/global-aridity-index-and-potential-evapotranspiration-climate-database-v2/), WorldClim version 2.0 (http://www.worldclim.org/), Woody Plants Database (http://woodyplants.cals.cornell.edu), TRY Database (https://www.try-db.org/TryWeb/Home.php), PLANTS Database (https://plants.usda.gov/) and BROT Database (https://www.uv.es/jgpausas/brot.htm). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

Funding: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC grant 647038 (BIODESERT) awarded to F.T.M.) and Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/041). D.J.E. was supported by the Hermon Slade Foundation (HSF21040). J. Ding was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Project (41991232) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China. M.D.-B. acknowledges support from TED2021-130908B-C41/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/Unión Europea Next Generation EU/PRTR and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the I + D + i project PID2020-115813RA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. O.S. was supported by US National Science Foundation (Grants DEB 1754106, 20-25166), and Y.L.B.-P. by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship (MSCA-1018 IF) within the European Program Horizon 2020 (DRYFUN Project 656035). K.G. and N.B. acknowledge support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) SPACES projects OPTIMASS (FKZ: 01LL1302A) and ORYCS (FKZ: FKZ01LL1804A). B.B. was supported by the Taylor Family-Asia Foundation Endowed Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology, and M. Bowker by funding from the School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University. C.B. acknowledges funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41971131). D.B. acknowledges support from the Hungarian Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFI KKP 144096), and A. Fajardo support from ANID PIA/BASAL FB 210006 and the Millennium Science Initiative Program NCN2021-050. M.F. and H.E. received funding from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (grant 39843). A.N. and M.K. acknowledge support from FCT (CEECIND/02453/2018/CP1534/CT0001, SFRH/BD/130274/2017, PTDC/ASP-SIL/7743/2020, UIDB/00329/2020), EEA (10/CALL#5), AdaptForGrazing (PRR-C05-i03-I-000035) and LTsER Montado platform (LTER_EU_PT_001) grants. O.V. acknowledges support from the Hungarian Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFI KKP 144096). L.W. was supported by the US National Science Foundation (EAR 1554894). Y.Z. and X.Z. were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2003214). H.S. is supported by a María Zambrano fellowship funded by the Ministry of Universities and European Union-Next Generation plan. The use of any trade, firm or product names does not imply endorsement by any agency, institution or government. Finally, we thank the many people who assisted with field work and the landowners, corporations and national bodies that allowed us access to their land.

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F.T.M. designed and coordinated the field survey. D.J.E. and J. Ding conceived the study. J. Dorrough undertook the Bayesian analyses, M.M-C. drafted the figures and J. Ding produced the map. Laboratory analyses were performed by V.O., B.G., B.J.M., S.A., A.R., P.D.-M., C.P., N.E., M.C.R., S.C. and M.D.-B. The other authors collected and managed the collection of field data. D.J.E. and J. Ding wrote the draft paper in collaboration with F.T.M. and O.S. and with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Jingyi Ding.

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Eldridge, D.J., Ding, J., Dorrough, J. et al. Hotspots of biogeochemical activity linked to aridity and plant traits across global drylands. Nat. Plants 10, 760–770 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01670-7

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