About - We are investigating the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity. We study how biodiversity and ecosystem functioning respond to global environmental changes, such as land use changes, nutrient enrichment, exotic species introductions, and climate extremes. We also study the responses of ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services to changes in biodiversity.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- How do global environmental changes impact biodiversity and ecosystems?
- How do changes in biodiversity influence ecosystems?
- How do species coexist in diverse communities?
Isbell et al. 2011 Nature
Here we show that 84% of the 147 grassland plant species studied in 17 biodiversity experiments promoted ecosystem functioning at least once. Different species promoted ecosystem functioning during different years, at different places, for different functions and under different environmental change scenarios. Our results suggest that although species may appear functionally redundant when one function is considered under one set of environmental conditions, many species are needed to maintain multiple functions at multiple times and places in a changing world.
Isbell et al. 2013 PNAS
Here we found that although chronic nitrogen enrichment initially increased productivity, it also led to loss of plant species, including initially dominant species, which then caused substantial diminishing returns from nitrogen fertilization. In contrast, elevated CO2 did not decrease grassland plant diversity, and it consistently promoted productivity over time. Our results support the hypothesis that the long-term impacts of anthropogenic drivers of environmental change on ecosystem functioning can strongly depend on how such drivers gradually decrease biodiversity and restructure communities.
Isbell et al. 2013 Ecol. Lett.
Our 30-year grassland experiment shows that plant diversity decreased well below control levels after 10 years of chronic high rates of nitrogen addition, and did not recover to control levels 20 years after nitrogen addition ceased. Furthermore, we found a hysteretic response of plant diversity to increases and subsequent decreases in soil nitrate concentrations. Our results suggest that chronic nutrient enrichment created an alternative low-diversity state that persisted despite decreases in soil nitrate after cessation of nitrogen addition, and despite supply of propagules from nearby high-diversity plots.
Isbell et al. 2015 Nature
We found that biodiversity increased ecosystem resistance for a broad range of climate events, including wet or dry, moderate or extreme, and brief or prolonged events. By a year after each climate event, ecosystem productivity had often fully recovered, or over-shot, normal levels of productivity in both high- and low-diversity communities, leading to no detectable dependence of ecosystem resilience on biodiversity. Our results suggest that biodiversity mainly stabilizes ecosystem productivity, and productivity-dependent ecosystem services, by increasing resistance to climate events.
People -
- All
- PI
- Postdoc
- Graduate Student
- Alumni
- Join
Publications - Reprints are provided for single-user, noncommercial use.
Authors
Year
Title
Source
PDF
Isbell et al.
2017
Linking the influence and dependence of people on biodiversity across scales
Nature 546:65-72
PDF
Ren, …, Isbell, et al.
2017
Exacerbated nitrogen limitation ends transient stimulation of grassland productivity by increased precipitation
Ecological Monographs In press
Isbell et al.
2017
Benefits of increasing plant diversity in sustainable agroecosystems
Journal of Ecology 105:871-879
PDF
Ratajczak, …, Isbell, et al.
2017
The interactive effects of press/pulse intensity and duration on regime shifts at multiple scales
Ecological Monographs 87:198-218
Thakur, …, Isbell, et al.
2017
Climate warming promotes species diversity but also taxonomic redundancy in complex environments
Science Advances In press
Fujii, …, Isbell
2017
Tree diversity improves decomposition rate and litter stabilization through mediating herbaceous diversity under forest restoration
Journal of Applied Ecology In press
Turnbull, Isbell, et al.
2016
Understanding the value of plant diversity for ecosystem functioning through niche theory
Proc. R. Soc. B 283:20160536
Keeler, …, Isbell, et al.
2016
The social cost of nitrogen: a spatially explicit framework for evaluating the nitrogen externality
Science Advances 2:e1600219
Gonzalez, …, Isbell, et al.
2016
Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity
Ecology 97:1949-1960
Craven, Isbell, et al.
2016
Plant diversity effects on grassland productivity are robust to both nutrient enrichment and drought
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371:20150277
Mori, Isbell, et al.
2016
Low multifunctional redundancy of soil fungal diversity at multiple spatial scales
Ecology Letters 19:249-259
Isbell et al.
2015
Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes
Nature 526:574-577
PDF
Isbell et al.
2015
The biodiversity-dependent ecosystem services debt
Ecology Letters 18:119-134
PDF
Isbell
2015
Agroecosystem diversification
Nature Plants 1:15041
PDF
Tilman and Isbell
2015
Biodiversity: recovery as nitrogen declines
Nature 528:336-337
PDF
Hautier, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
Anthropogenic environmental changes impact ecosystem stability via biodiversity
Science 348:336-340
PDF
Zhang, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
Productivity depends more on the rate than the frequency of N addition
Scientific Reports 5:12558
PDF
Dooley, Isbell, et al.
2015
Testing the effects of diversity on ecosystem multifunctionality using a multivariate model
Ecology Letters 18:1242-1251
PDF
Lefcheck, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
Biodiversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality across taxa, trophic levels, and habitats
Nature Communications 6:6936
PDF
Avolio, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
A framework for quantifying the magnitude and variability of community responses to global change drivers
Ecosphere 6:280
PDF
Venail, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
Species richness, but not phylogenetic diversity, influences community biomass production and temporal stability in a re-examination of 16 grassland biodiversity studies
Functional Ecology 29:615-626
PDF
Clark, …, Isbell, et al.
2015
Spatial 'convergent cross mapping' to detect causal relationships from short time-series
Ecology 96:1174-1181
PDF
Isbell and Loreau
2014
Sustainability of human ecological niche construction
Ecology and Society 19:45
PDF
Isbell
2014
Ecosystem Services
In Oxford Bibliographies in Ecology. Ed. David Gibson. New York: Oxford University Press
Tilman, Isbell, and Cowles
2014
Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 45:471-493
PDF
Byrnes, …, Isbell, et al.
2014
Multifunctionality does not imply that all functions are positively correlated
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111:E5490
PDF
Zhang, …, Isbell, et al.
2014
Rapid plant species loss at high rates and at low frequency of N addition in temperate steppe
Global Change Biology 20:3520-3529
PDF
Byrnes, …, Isbell, et al.
2014
Investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality: challenges and solutions
Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5:111-124
PDF
Balvanera, …, Isbell, et al.
2014
Linking biodiversity and ecosystem services: current uncertainties and the necessary next step
Bioscience 64:49-57
PDF
Isbell et al.
2013
Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110:11911–11916
PDF
Isbell et al.
2013
Low biodiversity state persists two decades after cessation of nutrient enrichment
Ecology Letters 16:454-460
PDF
Isbell and Loreau
2013
Human impacts on minimum subsets of species critical for maintaining ecosystem structure
Basic and Applied Ecology 14:623-629
PDF
Polley, Isbell, and Wilsey
2013
Plant functional traits improve diversity-based predictions of temporal stability of grassland productivity
Oikos 122:1275-1282
PDF
Huang, …, Isbell, et al.
2013
Is community persistence related to diversity? A test with prairie species in a long-term experiment
Basic and Applied Ecology 14:199-207
PDF
de Mazancourt, Isbell, et al.
2013
Predicting ecosystem stability from community composition and biodiversity
Ecology Letters 16:617-625
PDF
Connolly, …, Isbell, et al.
2013
An improved model to predict the effects of changing biodiversity levels on ecosystem function
Journal of Ecology 101:344-355
PDF
Reich, …, Isbell, et al.
2012
Impacts of biodiversity loss escalate through time as redundancy fades
Science 336:589-592
PDF
Tilman, Reich, and Isbell
2012
Biodiversity impacts ecosystem productivity as much as resources, disturbance, or herbivory
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109:10394-10397
PDF
Loreau, …, Isbell, et al.
2012
Niche and fitness differences relate the maintenance of diversity to ecosystem function: comment
Ecology 93:1482-1487
PDF
Eisenhauer, Reich, and Isbell
2012
Decomposer diversity and identity influence plant diversity effects on ecosystem functioning
Ecology 93:2227-2240
PDF
Isbell et al.
2011
High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services
Nature 477:199-202
PDF
Isbell and Wilsey
2011
Increasing native, but not exotic, biodiversity increases aboveground productivity in ungrazed and intensely grazed grasslands
Oecologia 165: 771-781
PDF
Isbell and Wilsey
2011
Rapid biodiversity declines in both ungrazed and intensely grazed exotic grasslands
Plant Ecology 212:1663-1674
PDF
Hector, …, Isbell, et al.
2011
BUGS in the analysis of biodiversity experiments: species richness and composition are of similar importance for grassland productivity
PLoS ONE 6: e17434
PDF
Isbell
2010
Causes and consequences of changing biodiversity
Nature Education Knowledge 1: 11
Isbell, Polley, and Wilsey
2009
Biodiversity, productivity, and the temporal stability of productivity: patterns and processes
Ecology Letters 12: 443-451
PDF
Isbell, Polley, and Wilsey
2009
Species interaction mechanisms maintain grassland plant species diversity
Ecology 90: 1821-1830
PDF
Wilsey, …, Isbell, et al.
2009
Biodiversity maintenance mechanisms differ between native and exotic communities
Ecology Letters 12: 432-442
PDF
Isbell et al.
2008
Diversity-productivity relationships in two ecologically realistic rarity-extinction scenarios
Oikos 117: 996-1005
PDF
Contact -
Forest Isbell
University of Minnesota
Associate Director
Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve
2660 Fawn Lake Drive NE, East Bethel, Minnesota 55005
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior
1987 Upper Buford Circle, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108
Phone: 1-612-301-2601