Search

Aim: Theoretical, experimental and observational studies have shown that biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships are influenced by functional community structure through two mutually non-exclusive mechanisms: (1) the dominance effect (which relates to the traits of the dominant species); and (2) the niche partitioning effect [which relates to functional diversity (FD)]. Although both mechanisms have been studied in plant communities and experiments at small spatial extents, it remains unclear whether evidence from small-extent case studies translates into a generalizable macroecological pattern. Here, we evaluate dominance and niche partitioning effects simultaneously in grassland systems world-wide.Location: Two thousand nine hundred and forty-one grassland plots globally.Time period: 2000–2014.Major taxa studied: Vascular plants.Methods: We obtained plot-based data on functional community structure from the global vegetation plot database “sPlot”, which combines species composition with plant trait data from the “TRY” database. We used data on the community-weighted mean (CWM) and FD for 18 ecologically relevant plant traits. As an indicator of primary productivity, we extracted the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from MODIS. Using generalized additive models and deviation partitioning, we estimated the contributions of trait CWM and FD to the variation in annual maximum NDVI, while controlling for climatic variables and spatial structure.Results: Grassland communities dominated by relatively tall species with acquisitive traits had higher NDVI values, suggesting the prevalence of dominance effects for BEF relationships. We found no support for niche partitioning for the functional traits analysed, because NDVI remained unaffected by FD. Most of the predictive power of traits was shared by climatic predictors and spatial coordinates. This highlights the importance of community assembly processes for BEF relationships in natural communities.Main conclusions: Our analysis provides empirical evidence that plant functional community structure and global patterns in primary productivity are linked through the resource economics and size traits of the dominant species. This is an important test of the hypotheses underlying BEF relationships at the global scale.

The disruptive effects of shiftwork on social and domestic life of workers are well documented. Still there are specific domains in which shiftworkers may be particularly affected by their work hours. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in several aspects of quality of life, life satisfaction and happiness between shift- and non-shiftworkers. Subjects were professionals in social care settings (e.g., nursing homes, retirement homes) from 75 cities around Croatia. Three groups were examined: shiftworkers working in schedules with the night shift (N=311), day-shiftworkers (N=207) and non-shiftworkers (N=1210). The survey consisted of several questionnaires measuring different aspects of workers life and subjective well-being. The Quality of Life Profile measures the importance, satisfaction, control and opportunities in the nine domains of life: physical, psychological and spiritual being, physical, social and community belonging, practical, leisure and growth becoming. Subjects also reported their overall happiness, percentage of being generally happy, unhappy and in neutral mood, and global life satisfaction. Demands of work were assessed in terms of subjects’ reports of effort required by the work and tiredness resulting from their work. While both groups of shiftworkers, compared to non-shiftworkers, needed more physical effort to complete their work and reported being more physically tired, no differences were found in reports of overall happiness, life satisfaction and total quality of life score. Though, night-shiftworkers reported greater percentage of time unhappy than other two groups of workers. In analyses of nine specific domains of life, importance and feeling in control were the same across the groups. However, night-shiftworkers were less satisfied with domains of spiritual being (e.g., personal values, beliefs), physical (e.g., connections with one’ s home, community) and community belonging (e.g., connections with services, events) than day-shiftworkers and non-shiftworkers. They also reported having fewer opportunities to improve their physical being (e.g. health, exercise), leisure (e.g. fun activities) and personal growth (e.g. knowledge, skills) than the other two groups. Even though quality of life scores for specific domains (i.e., combination of importance and satisfaction scores) are in range of acceptable to adequate, the domain of spiritual being was rated worse for night-shiftworkers than other groups of workers. In general, results suggest that shifts, particularly night shifts, play a role in workers’ quality of life assessments and that specific domains are more affected than others. This suggests intervention may be best targeted on specific domains