Nature Communications上發(fā)表的一項研究表明,，因氣候變化而導致的環(huán)境可變性的增加可能會加快植物入侵等生態(tài)變化。這項工作意味著,，因環(huán)境變化而發(fā)生的未來生物多樣性變化可能被相當大地低估了,。
環(huán)境變化有兩種形式：平均條件的變化和環(huán)境可變性的變化。模型預(yù)測：環(huán)境可變性今后將會增加,，導致極端氣候事件以及其他后果,。Oliver Bossdorf及其同事提出，環(huán)境可變性的這種增加還可能會加快生態(tài)變化,。
該小組研究了世界上入侵性最強的植物物種之一——“日本虎杖”,，發(fā)現(xiàn)營養(yǎng)物可變性的增加促進該植物的入侵和隨后的擴散。入侵性“虎杖”最具支配性,，引起更大變化,，沿周期性洪水造成擾動和營養(yǎng)物波動的河流分布。由于極端氣候事件的增加會增加發(fā)生這些洪水的可能性,，所以Bossdorf等人的結(jié)果強烈表明,，更大可變性會促進入侵性植物的進一步擴散。（生物谷Bioon.com）
Nature Communications, DOI:10.1038/ncomms2632
Environmental variability promotes plant invasion
Madalin Parepa,Markus Fischer& Oliver Bossdorf
Global environmental change not only entails changes in mean environmental conditions but also in their variability. Changes in climate variability are often associated with altered disturbance regimes and temporal patterns of resource availability. Here we show that increased variability of soil nutrients strongly promotes another key process of global change, plant invasion. In experimental plant communities, the success of one of the world's most invasive plants, Japanese knotweed, is two- to four-fold increased if extra nutrients are not supplied uniformly, but in a single large pulse, or in multiple pulses of different magnitudes. The superior ability to take advantage of variable environments may be a key mechanism of knotweed dominance, and possibly many other plant invaders. Our study demonstrates that increased nutrient variability can promote plant invasion, and that changes in environmental variability may interact with other global change processes and thereby substantially accelerate ecological change.
