Isbell Plant Ecology Lab

About - We are investigating the causes and consequences of changes in plant diversity. We study how biodiversity and ecosystem functioning respond to global changes, such as land use changes, nutrient enrichment, exotic species invasions, and climate extremes. We also study biodiversity's contribution to the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, including forage production for livestock, and carbon storage and sequestration for climate regulation.

Research Questions
Featured Publications

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How do global changes impact plant communities and ecosystems?
How do changes in biodiversity influence ecosystem functioning?
How do changes in biodiversity influence stability?
How do plant species coexist?
To what extent do ecosystem services depend on biodiversity?

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.

Reich et al. 2012 Science

We found that the effects of diversity on biomass productivity increased and became less saturating over time. Our analyses suggest that effects of diversity-dependent ecosystem feedbacks and interspecific complementarity accumulate over time, causing high-diversity species combinations that appeared functionally redundant during early years to become more functionally unique through time. Consequently, even the loss of a few species from diverse ecosystems could impact ecosystem functioning.

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Authors	Year	Title	Source	PDF
Tilman, G. D., F. Isbell, and J. M. Cowles	2014	Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning	Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. In press
Zhang, Y., X. Lu, F. Isbell, C. Stevens, X. Han, N. He, G. Zhang, Q. Yu, J. Huang, and X. Han	2014	Rapid plant species loss at high rates and at low frequency of N addition in temperate steppe	Global Change Biology In press
Isbell, F. and M. Loreau	2014	Sustainability of human ecological niche construction	Ecology and Society 19:45
Byrnes, J. E. K., L. Gamfeldt, F. Isbell, J. S. Lefcheck, J. N. Griffin, A. Hector, B. J. Cardinale, D. U. Hooper, L. E. Dee, and J. E. Duffy	2014	Investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality: challenges and solutions	Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5:111-124
Isbell, F.	2014	Ecosystem Services	In Oxford Bibliographies in Ecology. Ed. David Gibson. New York: Oxford University Press
Balvanera, P., I. Siddique, L. Dee, A. Paquette, F. Isbell, A. Gonzalez, J. Byrnes, M. I. O’Conner, B. A. Hungate, and J. N. Griffin	2014	Linking biodiversity and ecosystem services: current uncertainties and the necessary next step	Bioscience 64:49-57
Isbell, F. and M. Loreau	2013	Human impacts on minimum subsets of species critical for maintaining ecosystem structure	Basic and Applied Ecology 14:623-629
Isbell, F., P. B. Reich, D. Tilman, S. E. Hobbie, S. Polasky, and S. Binder	2013	Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity	Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110:11911–11916	PDF
Polley, H. W., F. Isbell, and B. J. Wilsey	2013	Plant functional traits improve diversity-based predictions of temporal stability of grassland productivity	Oikos 122:1275-1282
Huang, Y., L. M. Martin, F. Isbell, and B. J. Wilsey	2013	Is community persistence related to diversity? A test with prairie species in a long-term experiment	Basic and Applied Ecology 14:199-207
de Mazancourt, C., F. Isbell, A. Larocque, F. Berendse, E. De Luca, B. Haegeman, H. W. Polley, C. Roscher, B. Schmid, D. Tilman, J. van Ruijven, A. Weigelt, B. J. Wilsey, and M. Loreau	2013	Predicting ecosystem stability from community composition and biodiversity	Ecology Letters 16:617-625
Isbell, F., D. Tilman, S. Polasky, S. Binder, and P. Hawthorne	2013	Low biodiversity state persists two decades after cessation of nutrient enrichment	Ecology Letters 16:454-460
Connolly, J., T. Bell, T. Bolger, C. Brophy, T. Carnus, J. A. Finn, L. Kirwan, F. Isbell, J. Levine, A. Lüscher, V. Picasso, C. Roscher, M. T. Sebastia , M. Suter, A. Weigelt	2013	An improved model to predict the effects of changing biodiversity levels on ecosystem function	Journal of Ecology 101:344-355
Reich, P. B., D. Tilman, F. Isbell, K. Mueller, S. E. Hobbie, D. Flynn and N. Eisenhauer	2012	Impacts of biodiversity loss escalate through time as redundancy fades	Science 336:589-592	PDF
Tilman, D., P. B. Reich, and F. Isbell	2012	Biodiversity impacts ecosystem productivity as much as resources, disturbance, or herbivory	Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109:10394-10397	PDF
Loreau, M., J. Sapijanskas, F. Isbell, and A. Hector	2012	Niche and fitness differences relate the maintenance of diversity to ecosystem function: comment	Ecology 93:1482-1487	PDF
Eisenhauer, N., P. B. Reich, and F. Isbell	2012	Decomposer diversity and identity influence plant diversity effects on ecosystem functioning	Ecology 93:2227-2240	PDF
Isbell, F., V. Calcagno, A. Hector, J. Connolly, W. S. Harpole, P. B. Reich, M. Scherer-Lorenzen, B. Schmid, D. Tilman, J. van Ruijven, A. Weigelt, B. J. Wilsey, E. S. Zavaleta, and M. Loreau	2011	High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services	Nature 477:199-202	PDF
Isbell, F. I., and B. J. Wilsey	2011	Increasing native, but not exotic, biodiversity increases aboveground productivity in ungrazed and intensely grazed grasslands	Oecologia 165: 771-781	*PDF*
Isbell, F. I., and B. J. Wilsey	2011	Rapid biodiversity declines in both ungrazed and intensely grazed exotic grasslands	Plant Ecology 212:1663-1674	*PDF*
Hector, A., T. Bell, Y. Hautier, F. Isbell, M. Kery, P. B. Reich, J. van Ruijven, and B. Schmid	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, F. I.	2010	Causes and consequences of changing biodiversity	Nature Education Knowledge 1: 11
Isbell, F. I., H. W. Polley, and B. J. Wilsey	2009	Species interaction mechanisms maintain grassland plant species diversity	Ecology 90: 1821-1830	PDF
Isbell, F. I., H. W. Polley, and B. J. Wilsey	2009	Biodiversity, productivity, and the temporal stability of productivity: patterns and processes	Ecology Letters 12: 443-451	PDF
Wilsey, B. J., T. B. Teaschner, P. P. Daneshgar, F. I. Isbell, and H. W. Polley	2009	Biodiversity maintenance mechanisms differ between native and exotic communities	Ecology Letters 12: 432-442	*PDF*
Isbell, F. I., D. A. Losure, K. A. Yurkonis, and B. J. Wilsey	2008	Diversity-productivity relationships in two ecologically realistic rarity-extinction scenarios	Oikos 117: 996-1005	PDF