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Biodiversity's holy grail is in the soil
"Bill who putters" wrote in message
Biologists refer to soil as a "black box" because it is notoriously difficult to study a tangle of roots, bacteria, fungi, tiny insects and other creatures without isolating or changing them. Very similar results in the greenhouse and in the field reveal that plant interactions with soil biota alone‹not nutrients, insects, mammals or above-ground diseases‹are sufficiently powerful and specific to explain why multiple species co-exist and importantly the strength of those interactions can be measured and plant species that are most abundant are least influenced by the soil biota around their parents. "We have dealt yet another blow to the ailing Neutral Theory of Biodiversity, which is premised on the idea that all species are the same," said Herre. "These two publications provide strong evidence that there are stabilizing mechanisms that maintain diversity, and thus that neutral dynamics do not explain plant species diversity and abundance." Thanks - interesting, but not really surprising. |
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