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Abstract: Plant–soil biodiversity interactions are fundamental for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, the existence of a set of globally distributed topsoil microbial and small invertebrate organisms consistently associated with land plants (i.e., their consistent soil-borne microbiome), together with the environmental preferences and functional capabilities of these organisms, remains unknown. We conducted a standardized field survey under 150 species of land plants, including 58 species of bryophytes and 92 of vascular plants, across 124 locations from all continents. We found that, despite the immense biodiversity of soil organisms, the land plants evaluated only shared a small fraction (less than 1%) of all microbial and invertebrate taxa that were present across contrasting climatic and soil conditions and vegetation types. These consistent taxa were dominated by generalist decomposers and phagotrophs and their presence was positively correlated with the abundance of functional genes linked to mineralization. Finally, we showed that crossing environmental thresholds in aridity (aridity index of 0.65, i.e., the transition from mesic to dry ecosystems), soil pH (5.5; i.e., the transition from acidic to strongly acidic soils), and carbon (less than 2%, the lower limit of fertile soils) can result in drastic disruptions in the associations between land plants and soil organisms, with potential implications for the delivery of soil ecosystem processes under ongoing global environmental change.
Keywords: belowground networks, environmental thresholds, moss microbiome, plant microbiome, plant–soil interactions
Published in DiRROS: 31.05.2024; Views: 30; Downloads: 28
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Abstract: For a set ${\mathcal Q}$ of points in the plane and a real number $\delta \ge 0$, let $\mathbb{G}_\delta({\mathcal Q})$ be the graph defined on ${\mathcal Q}$ by connecting each pair of points at distance at most $\delta$. We consider the connectivity of $\mathbb{G}_\delta({\mathcal Q})$ in the best scenario when the location of a few of the points is uncertain, but we know for each uncertain point a line segment that contains it. More precisely, we consider the following optimization problem: given a set ${\mathcal P}$ of $n-k$ points in the plane and a set ${\mathcal S}$ of $k$ line segments in the plane, find the minimum $\delta \ge 0$ with the property that we can select one point $p_s\in s$ for each segment $s\in {\mathcal S}$ and the corresponding graph $\mathbb{G}_\delta( {\mathcal P}\cup \{ p_s\mid s\in {\mathcal S}\})$ is connected. It is known that the problem is NP-hard. We provide an algorithm to exactly compute an optimal solution in ${\mathcal O}(f(k) n \log n)$ time, for a computable function $f(\cdot)$. This implies that the problem is FPT when parameterized by $k$. The best previous algorithm uses ${\mathcal O}((k!)^k k^{k+1}\cdot n^{2k})$ time and computes the solution up to fixed precision.
Keywords: computational geometry, uncertainty, geometric optimization, fixed parameter tractability, parametric search
Published in DiRROS: 13.05.2024; Views: 92; Downloads: 75
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Abstract: We obtain a sharp estimate on the norm of the differential of a harmonic map from the unit disc ${\mathbb D}$ in ${\mathbb C}$ into the unit ball ${\mathbb B}^n$ in ${\mathbb R}^n$, $n\ge 2$, at any point where the map is conformal. In dimension $n=2$, this generalizes the classical Schwarz-Pick lemma, and for $n\ge 3$ it gives the optimal Schwarz-Pick lemma for conformal minimal discs ${\mathbb D}\to {\mathbb B}^n$. This implies that conformal harmonic immersions $M \to {\mathbb B}^n$ from any hyperbolic conformal surface are distance-decreasing in the Poincaré metric on $M$ and the Cayley-Klein metric on the ball ${\mathbb B}^n$, and the extremal maps are precisely the conformal embeddings of the disc ${\mathbb D}$ onto affine discs in ${\mathbb B}^n$. Motivated by these results, we introduce an intrinsic pseudometric on any Riemannian manifold of dimension at least three by using conformal minimal discs, and we lay foundations of the corresponding hyperbolicity theory.
Keywords: harmonic maps, minimal surfaces, Schwarz–Pick lemma, Cayley–Klein metric
Published in DiRROS: 25.04.2024; Views: 172; Downloads: 59
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Keywords: onkologija, klinične raziskave, citatni indeksi, kvantitativno vrednotenje raziskovalne uspešnosti, dejavnik vpliva revije, odprta znanost, citiranje literature, Vancouvrski citatni stil
Published in DiRROS: 24.04.2024; Views: 156; Downloads: 33
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Abstract: Greenspaces are important for sustaining healthy urban environments and their human populations. Yet their capacity to support multiple ecosystem services simultaneously (multiservices) compared with nearby natural ecosystems remains virtually unknown. We conducted a global field survey in 56 urban areas to investigate the influence of urban greenspaces on 23 soil and plant attributes and compared them with nearby natural environments. We show that, in general, urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas support similar levels of soil multiservices, with only six of 23 attributes (available phosphorus, water holding capacity, water respiration, plant cover, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and arachnid richness) significantly greater in greenspaces, and one (available ammonium) greater in natural areas. Further analyses showed that, although natural areas and urban greenspaces delivered a similar number of services at low (>25% threshold) and moderate (>50%) levels of functioning, natural systems supported significantly more functions at high (>75%) levels of functioning. Management practices (mowing) played an important role in explaining urban ecosystem services, but there were no effects of fertilisation or irrigation. Some services declined with increasing site size, for both greenspaces and natural areas. Our work highlights the fact that urban greenspaces are more similar to natural environments than previously reported and underscores the importance of managing urban greenspaces not only for their social and recreational values, but for supporting multiple ecosystem services on which soils and human well-being depends.
Keywords: soil, ecosystem services, urban forests
Published in DiRROS: 17.04.2024; Views: 182; Downloads: 86
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