Description: The field of ecoinformatics provides concepts, methods and standards to guide management and analysis of ecological data with particular emphasis on exploration of co-occurrences of organisms and their linkage to environmental conditions and taxon attributes. In this editorial, introducing the Special Feature ‘Ecoinformatics and global change’, we reflect on the development of ecoinformatics and explore its importance for future global change research with special focus on vegetation-plot data. We show how papers in this Special Feature illustrate important directions and approaches in this emerging field. We suggest that ecoinformatics has the potential to make profound contributions to pure and applied sciences, and that the analyses, databases, meta-databases, data exchange formats and analytical tools presented in this Special Feature advance this approach to vegetation science and illustrate and address important open questions. We conclude by describing important future directions for the development of the field including incentives for data sharing, creation of tools for more robust statistical analysis, utilities for integration of data that conform to divergent taxonomic standards, and databases that provide detailed plot-specific data so as to allow users to find and access data appropriate to their research needs.

Description:    Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from grazed grasslands are estimated to be approximately 28% of global anthropogenic N 2 O emissions. Estimating the N 2 O flux from grassland soils is difficult because of its episodic nature. This study aimed to quantify the N 2 O emissions, the annual N 2 O flux and the emission factor (EF), and also to investigate the influence of environmental and soil variables controlling N 2 O emissions from grazed grassland. Nitrous oxide emissions were measured using static chambers at eight different grasslands in the South of Ireland from September 2007 to August 2009. The instantaneous N 2 O flux values ranged from -186 to 885.6 μg N 2 O-N m −2  h −1 and the annual sum ranged from 2 ± 3.51 to 12.55 ± 2.83 kg N 2 O-N ha −1  y −1 for managed sites. The emission factor ranged from 1.3 to 3.4%. The overall EF of 1.81% is about 69% higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) default EF value of 1.25% which is currently used by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to estimate N 2 O emission in Ireland. At an N applied of approximately 300 kg ha −1  y −1 , the N 2 O emissions are approximately 5.0 kg N 2 O-N ha −1 y −1 , whereas the N 2 O emissions double to approximately 10 kg N ha −1 for an N applied of 400 kg N ha −1  y −1 . The sites with higher fluxes were associated with intensive N-input and frequent cattle grazing. The N 2 O flux at 17°C was five times greater than that at 5°C. Similarly, the N 2 O emissions increased with increasing water filled pore space (WFPS) with maximum N 2 O emissions occurring at 60–80% WFPS. We conclude that N application below 300 kg ha −1  y −1 and restricted grazing on seasonally wet soils will reduce N 2 O emissions. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10021-011-9434-x Authors Rashad Rafique, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Hydrology, Micrometeorology and Climate Change, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Deirdre Hennessy, Department of Animals &, Grassland Science Research, Teagasc-Moorpark, Fermoy, Ireland Gerard Kiely, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Hydrology, Micrometeorology and Climate Change, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Journal Ecosystems Online ISSN 1435-0629 Print ISSN 1432-9840

Description: Questions: What are the most likely environmental drivers for compositional herb layer changes as indicated by trait differences between winner and loser species? Location: Weser-Elbe region (NW Germany). Methods: We resurveyed the herb layer communities of ancient forest patches on base-rich sites of 175 semi-permanent plots. Species traits were tested for their ability to discriminate between winner and loser species using logistic regression analyses and deviance partitioning. Results: Of 115 species tested, 31 were identified as winner species and 30 as loser species. Winner species had higher seed longevity, flowered later in the season and more often had an oceanic distribution compared to loser species. Loser species tended to have a higher specific leaf area, were more susceptible to deer browsing and had a performance optimum at higher soil pH compared to winner species. The loser species also represented several ancient forest and threatened species. Deviance partitioning indicated that local drivers (i.e. disturbance due to forest management) were primarily responsible for the species shifts, while regional drivers (i.e. browsing pressure and acidification from atmospheric deposition) and global drivers (i.e. climate warming) had moderate effects. There was no evidence that canopy closure, drainage or eutrophication contributed to herb layer changes. Conclusions: The relative importance of the different drivers as indicated by the winner and loser species differs from that found in previous long-term studies. Relating species traits to species performance is a valuable tool that provides insight into the environmental drivers that are most likely responsible for herb layer changes.

Description: Tropical forests are biologically diverse ecosystems that play important roles in the carbon cycle and maintenance of global biodiversity. Understanding how tropical forests respond to environmental changes is important, as changes in carbon storage can modulate the rate and magnitude of climate change. Applying an ecoinformatics approach for managing long-term forest inventory plot data, where individual trees are tracked over time, facilitates regional and cross-continental forest research to evaluate changes in taxonomic composition, growth, recruitment and mortality rates, and carbon and biomass stocks. We developed ForestPlots.net as a secure, online inventory data repository and to facilitate data management of long-term tropical forest plots to promote scientific collaborations among independent researchers. The key novel features of the database are: (a) a design that efficiently deals with time-series data; (b) data management tools to assess potential errors; and (c) a query library to generate outputs (e.g. biomass and carbon stock changes over time).

Description: Questions The study of naturally discontinuous forest systems could help further our understanding of the relative roles of abiotic factors and spatial connectivity in influencing species turnover and plant metacommunity structure compared to continuous forest formations where local communities are often arbitrarily defined and where ‘mass effects’ and source-sink dynamics tend to confound the roles of dispersal and environment. Here we study a tropical montane landscape where old-growth evergreen forest occurs as patchy formations in a matrix of natural grasslands, to test the influence of environment and connectivity on species turnover and woody plant metacommunity structure . Location The study area consists of the western and southern regions of the Upper Nilgiri Plateau in the Western Ghats of Southern India, a global biodiversity hotspot . Methods We sampled 85 vegetation plots located across a 600 km2 landscape, assembled environmental data, constructed contrasting spatial connectivity models, including models for the effects of topography on structural connectivity, and used RDA-based variation partitioning to assess the relative influence of environment and space on woody plant metacommunity structure . Results Considering several environmental and multi-scale spatial predictors, we could explain half the variation in plant community structure. Environmental and habitat factors such as precipitation, temperature seasonality, elevation, fragment size and landscape context play a dominant role and explain 42% of variation. Spatial predictors based on Euclidean distance performed better than those that accounted for topographical resistance. Spatial predictors accounted for only 9% of the variation in plant metacommunity structure . Conclusion Our results support the species sorting paradigm of metacommunity structure, as abiotic effects and biotic interactions play dominant roles in influencing community structure and species turnover in these old growth forests with a comparatively small influence of spatial connectivity. Effective management of woody species diversity would therefore require conservation of these forests across the range of environmental conditions under which they occur . This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description:    Agricultural drainage is thought to alter greenhouse gas emissions from temperate peatlands, with CH 4 emissions reduced in favor of greater CO 2 losses. Attention has largely focussed on C trace gases, and less is known about the impacts of agricultural conversion on N 2 O or global warming potential. We report greenhouse gas fluxes (CH 4 , CO 2 , N 2 O) from a drained peatland in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California, USA currently managed as a rangeland (that is, pasture). This ecosystem was a net source of CH 4 (25.8 ± 1.4 mg CH 4 -C m −2  d −1 ) and N 2 O (6.4 ± 0.4 mg N 2 O-N m −2  d −1 ). Methane fluxes were comparable to those of other managed temperate peatlands, whereas N 2 O fluxes were very high; equivalent to fluxes from heavily fertilized agroecosystems and tropical forests. Ecosystem scale CH 4 fluxes were driven by “hotspots” (drainage ditches) that accounted for less than 5% of the land area but more than 84% of emissions. Methane fluxes were unresponsive to seasonal fluctuations in climate and showed minimal temporal variability. Nitrous oxide fluxes were more homogeneously distributed throughout the landscape and responded to fluctuations in environmental variables, especially soil moisture. Elevated CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes contributed to a high overall ecosystem global warming potential (531 g CO 2 -C equivalents m −2  y −1 ), with non-CO 2 trace gas fluxes offsetting the atmospheric “cooling” effects of photoassimilation. These data suggest that managed Delta peatlands are potentially large regional sources of greenhouse gases, with spatial heterogeneity in soil moisture modulating the relative importance of each gas for ecosystem global warming potential. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-15 DOI 10.1007/s10021-011-9411-4 Authors Yit Arn Teh, Environmental Change Research Group, School of Geography & Geosciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9 AL Scotland, UK Whendee L. Silver, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Oliver Sonnentag, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Matteo Detto, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Maggi Kelly, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Dennis D. Baldocchi, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Journal Ecosystems Online ISSN 1435-0629 Print ISSN 1432-9840

Description: Questions As biodiversity losses increase due to global change and human-induced habitat destruction, the relationships between plant traits and ecosystem properties can provide a new level of understanding ecosystem complexity. Using a functional response–effect approach, we show that multiple components of the carbon cycle are determined by a few plant traits, which in turn are strongly affected by environmental conditions. Location Salt marshes, northwest Germany. Methods We explored responses of morphological, chemical and biomass-related plant traits to environmental drivers and examined their effects on carbon cycle properties, i.e. above-ground biomass, above-ground net primary productivity and decomposition. The combined analysis between environmental parameters, functional traits and ecosystem properties used structural equation modelling (SEM). Results Important response and effect traits were leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and below-ground dry mass (BDM, responding to groundwater level and salinity) and leaf C:N ratio (responding to inundation frequency). Inundation and salinity led to increased allocation to below-ground biomass and salt stress adaptation in leaves, which translated into increased decomposition rates. Release from these abiotic controls resulted in standing biomass accumulation, which was controlled by LDMC and canopy height as key traits. Conclusions These findings demonstrate the interacting effects of non-consumable environmental factors and soil resources on morphological, chemical and biomass traits, which affected carbon cycle properties. Loss of species from the community has the potential to change the relationships between environment and vegetation-based ecosystem properties and therefore elicit effects on the multifunctionality of the entire and adjacent ecosystems. Studying relationships between plant traits and ecosystem properties can provide new insight into ecosystem complexity. We ask how plant species traits respond to environmental conditions and how key effect traits determine carbon related ecosystem properties in salt marshes of NW-Germany. Our study reveals interacting effects of environmental factors on morphological, chemical and biomass traits and gives recommendations for conservation management.