Artículos de revistas
Nutrients cause grassland biomass to outpace herbivory
Fecha
2020-12-01Registro en:
Nature Communications, v. 11, n. 1, 2020.
2041-1723
10.1038/s41467-020-19870-y
2-s2.0-85096749980
Autor
University of Minnesota
Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Utah State University
University of Toronto - Scarborough
Tapada da Ajuda
Facultad de Agronomía
The University of Sydney
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Trinity College Dublin
University of Oulu
Queensland University of Technology
University of Maryland
University of North Carolina
University of Texas
Washington University in St. Louis
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
University of Guelph
Texas State University
Clayton Campus
Benedictine College
University of Cádiz
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Western Sydney University
Charles Sturt University
Snow and Landscape Research
TIFR
University of Leeds
Lancaster University
University of Bayreuth
Institución
Resumen
Human activities are transforming grassland biomass via changing climate, elemental nutrients, and herbivory. Theory predicts that food-limited herbivores will consume any additional biomass stimulated by nutrient inputs (‘consumer-controlled’). Alternatively, nutrient supply is predicted to increase biomass where herbivores alter community composition or are limited by factors other than food (‘resource-controlled’). Using an experiment replicated in 58 grasslands spanning six continents, we show that nutrient addition and vertebrate herbivore exclusion each caused sustained increases in aboveground live biomass over a decade, but consumer control was weak. However, at sites with high vertebrate grazing intensity or domestic livestock, herbivores consumed the additional fertilization-induced biomass, supporting the consumer-controlled prediction. Herbivores most effectively reduced the additional live biomass at sites with low precipitation or high ambient soil nitrogen. Overall, these experimental results suggest that grassland biomass will outstrip wild herbivore control as human activities increase elemental nutrient supply, with widespread consequences for grazing and fire risk.