High plant diversity and slow assembly of old-growth grasslands
High plant diversity and slow assembly of old-growth grasslands
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1922266117
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发表时间：
2020-08-04
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Veldman, Joseph W.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nerlekar, Ashish N.;Veldman, Joseph W.
Earth's ancient grasslands and savannas-hereafter old-growth grasslands-have long been viewed by scientists and environmental policymakers as early successional plant communities of low conservation value. Challenging this view, emerging research suggests that old-growth grasslands support substantial biodiversity and are slow to recover if destroyed by human land uses (e.g., tillage agriculture, plantation forestry). But despite growing interest in grassland conservation, there has been no global test of whether old-growth grasslands support greater plant species diversity than secondary grasslands (i.e., herbaceous communities that assemble after destruction of old-growth grasslands). Our synthesis of 31 studies, including 92 timepoints on six continents, found that secondary grasslands supported 37% fewer plant species than old-growth grasslands (log response ratio = -0.46) and that secondary grasslands typically require at least a century, and more often millennia (projected mean 1,400 y), to recover their former richness. Young (
