New Publication from Zhou et al. in Nature Geoscience: Resistance of ecosystem services to global change weakened by increasing number of environmental stressors

Terrestrial ecosystems are subjected to multiple global changes simultaneously. Yet, how an increasing number of global changes impact the resistance of ecosystems to global change remains virtually unknown. Here we present a global synthesis including 14,000 observations from seven ecosystem services (functions and biodiversity), as well as data from a 15-year field experiment. We found that the resistance of multiple ecosystem services to global change declines with an increasing number of global change factors, particularly after long-term exposure to these factors. Biodiversity had a higher resistance to multiple global changes compared with ecosystem functions. Our work suggests that we need to consider the combined effects of multiple global changes on the magnitude and resistance of ecosystem services worldwide, as ecosystem responses will be enhanced by the number of environmental stressors and time of exposure.

Relative importance of climate, soil propensity, global change factors, ecosystems attributes and experimental duration in modulating multiservice resistance of plant production, soil carbon, SOM decomposition, microbial biomass, soil fertility, plant biodiversity and microbial biodiversity.

Reference:

Zhou, G., N. Eisenhauer, C. Terrer, D. J. Eldridge, H. Duan, et al. 2024. Resistance of ecosystem services to global change weakened by increasing number of environmental stressors. Nature Geoscience:1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01518-x.