RESUMEN

Scenarios of changes in biodiversity for the year 2100 can now be developed based on scenarios of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate, vegetation, and land use and the known sensitivity of biodiversity to these changes. This study identified a ranking of the importance of drivers of change, a ranking of the biomes with respect to expected changes, and the major sources of uncertainties. For terrestrial ecosystems, land-use change probably will have the largest effect, followed by climate change, nitrogen deposition, biotic exchange, and elevated carbon dioxide concentration. For freshwater ecosystems, biotic exchange is much more important. Mediterranean climate and grassland ecosystems likely will experience the greatest proportional change in biodiversity because of the substantial influence of all drivers of biodiversity change. Northern temperate ecosystems are estimated to experience the least biodiversity change because major land-use change has already occurred. Plausible changes in biodiversity in other biomes depend on interactions among the causes of biodiversity change. These interactions represent one of the largest uncertainties in projections of future biodiversity change.

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RESUMEN

Studies of ecosystem processes on the Jornada Experimental Range in southern New Mexico suggest that longterm grazing of semiarid grasslands leads to an increase in the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of water, nitrogen, and other soil resources. Heterogeneity of soil resources promotes invasion by desert shrubs, which leads to a further localization of soil resources under shrub canopies. In the barren area between shrubs, soil fertility is lost by erosion and gaseous emissions. This positive feedback leads to the desertification of formerly productive land in southern New Mexico and in other regions, such as the Sahel. Future desertification is likely to be exacerbated by global climate warming and to cause significant changes in global biogeochemical cycles.

RESUMEN

Portions of an annual serpentine grassland community in California are subject to frequent gopher mound formation. Consequently, studies were undertaken to characterize the effects of mound soils on plant growth and ion uptake. For two of the dominant annual species (Bromus mollis L. and Plantago erecta Morris), growth was reduced in gopher mound soil relative to that in inter-mound soil. A similar reduction in growth was found for plants grown in soils collected at a depth corresponding to the depth of gopher burrowing. This reduction in growth was associated with lower total P and N contents of the soil which were reflected in lower shoot contents of N and P. Additional experiments, however, showed that reduced N and P availabilities in mound soil were not entirely responsible for the growth reduction. Similarly, shoot Ca/Mg ratios were reduced in mound soil but additions of Ca improved the Ca/Mg ratio without improving growth. Growth reductions were associated with altered shoot concentrations of microelements, particularly elevated levels of Mn. A competition experiment between Plantago and Bromus showed that Bromus was more competitive than Plantago in mound and inter-mound soils and that soil type had only small affects on the nature of the interaction between the two species.