Ecology: Getting to the root of plant diversity
DOI: 10.1038/nature09273
Plant biodiversity can be maintained by a process of negative feedback between tropical trees and soil-dwelling organisms, a Nature study suggests. The find is important because it is thought that these species-specific interactions may represent a general mechanism for maintaining plant species diversity across diverse ecosystems.
Scott Mangan and colleagues show that these local ecological processes can maintain diversity, and that they can also predict tree abundance at the community level. Trees with the greatest abundance exhibit the weakest negative feedback, indicating that these tree species are numerous because they are less susceptible to the detrimental effects of their associated soil communities than are rarer tree species.
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Scott Mangan (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA)
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