As emphasized in other blog posts, communication is crucial between different research branches. I chose to talk about The potential contribution of vegetation ecology to biodiversity research, (1999) mainly because of the emphasis it gives to communication as a tool between scientists of different research fields and because of the broadness and relevance of the subject.
M. P. Austin published this article in the year that I was born. YES, doing science is a part of the history of human society.
The article discusses how the study and analysis of vegetation ecology* are important to understanding biodiversity patterns, since plant communities play a central role in determining the stability, species composition and function of ecosystems. In addition, it criticizes how experiments are done, and suggests alterations and considerations to further develop experiments and ecology knowledge as a whole.
M. P. Austin (1999) analyses how eucalypts respond to temperature differences, and discusses statistical techniques as tools to interpret the results.
They were able to distinguish the effect of climate versus species history and dispersal abilities as determinants of the diversity of tree species that compose a forest in New Zealand.
Why should we care about plant community biodiversity?
(I have written another blog post with a very actual example on it. Access it here: https://biology4095.science.blog/2022/03/02/scientist-versus-biology-student-on-why-to-protect-our-biodiversity/.)
Biodiversity is the reflection of a multi-dimensional environmental space.
What does that mean? The different kinds of organisms that exist in a given place interact with that place in an array of ways: they search for food, “homes” and nesting places, react to the presence of other organisms and react to abiotic factors such as climate, topography and time.
When mentioning environmental space, the author is referring to this collection of factors and their possible gradients. Species respond differently to environmental gradients, each of them has optimal conditions.
Therefore, the author suggests that experiments using plant communities need to be designed in a way that incorporates environmental gradients, as well as biotic components and biological processes. It is by linking research papers and new discoveries throughout different scientific branches that projects become relevant, and work as pieces of the great ecological puzzle.
Neglecting important factors such as environmental gradients as influences of plant communities can result in limited studies. Sometimes, researches deep dive in punctual subjects, and forget to create or propose a connection of what they discovered to the bigger scene.
Use this citation to access the full paper: Austin. (1999). The potential contribution of vegetation ecology to biodiversity research. Ecography (Copenhagen), 22(5), 465–484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.1999.tb01276.x
*Used in the article as the observational study of the abundances and distributions of plants and how they interact with the environment and other organisms that inhabit their surroundings.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 