Cardinale reply

Bradley J. Cardinale ()
Additional contact information
Bradley J. Cardinale: * University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources & Environment, 440 Church Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1041, USA

Nature, 2011, vol. 477, issue 7366, E3-E4

Abstract: Abstract Replying to H. M. Baulch, E. H. Stanley & E. S. Bernhardt Nature 477, doi:10.1038/nature10418 (2011) Over the last 20 years, 59 experiments have quantified how the richness of plants and algae influence concentrations of inorganic nitrogen in soil or water1. Of these, 86% have shown that the concentration of nitrogen decreases as biodiversity increases—by an average of 48%. The primary contribution of my study2 was to identify a biological mechanism that is likely to explain these biodiversity effects. Using stream mesocosms, I showed that the impacts of algal diversity on nitrogen dynamics are controlled by niche partitioning—a long presumed, but rarely demonstrated mechanism. Baulch, Stanley and Bernhardt3 have questioned whether my findings have any implications for managing water quality in ‘real’ streams, as I suggested. They argue that nitrogen assimilation by algae cannot influence long-term nitrogen retention due to high turnover of algal biomass and rapid recycling of nitrogen, and they suggest that the only permanent loss of nitrogen from a stream is via denitrification.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10419 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:477:y:2011:i:7366:d:10.1038_nature10419

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature10419

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().