Brian J. Wilsey
B.S. 1986 Henderson State University
M.S. 1988 Louisiana State University
Ph.D. 1995 Syracuse University
Title and Mailing Address:
Professor, Department of
Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal
Biology,
253 Bessey Hall,
Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-1020
Office: 131 Bessey Hall
Lab: 40 Bessey Hall
Phone: (515)294-0232
Fax: (515)294-1337
E-mail: bwilsey@iastate.edu
RESEARCH INTERESTS OF THE WILSEY LAB
In the Wilsey lab, we are interested in the ecology of
grasslands. Tallgrass prairies are among the most
species-diverse ecosystems. We commonly count 20-30 plant species in Iowa
within small
quadrats (0.4 m2), and most small prairies (< 10 ha) support more than one
hundred species (
Martin et al. 2005, Wilsey et al. 2005a). It is
still
largely unknown how this very high species diversity develops and is
maintained over time. Developing a better understanding of mechanisms behind
diversity maintenance is a central focus of work in the lab (e.g. Wilsey et al.
2005, Polley et al. 2005, Martin and
Wilsey 2006, Isbell et al. 2009, Wilsey et al. 2009).
Furthermore, we
are studying how changes in
species diversity influence community stability and ecosystem process rates
(i.e. ecosystem services).
Information from
our studies will be useful in the management and
restoration of
grassland ecosystems.
Loess Hills, Iowa (Sylvan
Runkel
Preserve)
Biodiversity and ecosystem process rates in native and exotic
communities (MEND - Maintenance of Exotic vs. Native Diversity). Funded by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA Carbon Cycling Science Program
The homogenization of the earth's biota is affecting nearly every region of the
earth, and is expected to increase due to increased movement
of people and goods between regions. Grasslands, which cover roughly 25% of
the planet, contain perhaps the most homogenized communities. Many exotic (i.e. non-native or "invasive") species have been
introduced or have escaped into grasslands where they form 'novel ecosystems' (Hobbs et al. 2006) of species with
a very recent history of interacting with each other. This has led to a patchwork of exotic- and native-dominated
fields on modern landscapes. Species interactions, biodiversity, niche overlap, and ecosystem functioning could
all differ between these novel ecosystems and the native systems that they replaced. We are testing whether there are fundamental differences
in biodiversity maintenance mechanisms and ecosystem functioning between
exotic- and native-dominated grasslands with large numbers species (e.g. 40 native and exotic species in Wilsey et al
. 2009). Hypotheses are being tested by comparing paired exotic and native
species in planted mixtures and monocultures in common garden experiments and with observational studies of intact grasslands.
Treatments also include altered rainfall (Wilsey et al. 2011) or cattle grazing (Isbell and Wilsey 2011). Summer
precipition treatments are either no precipitation or 128 mm added from July 15-August 15
(or 15% increase in annual precipitation) during the driest part of the year. The most important findings so far are:
1) species diversity and richness was consistently much lower
in exotic communities than in native communities, even when communities were compared in a common environment,
2) species interactions were fundamentally different, with complementary resource use occurring in native but not exotic communities,
3) niche overlap was much higher in exotic than in native communities, and this was related to temporal (Wilsey et al.
in press) or canopy overlap (Isbell and Wilsey 2011),
4) spring green-up was consistently about four weeks earlier in exotic communities and three
and a half weeks earlier in exotic monocultures than natives, and
5) intercorrelations among phenology measures (green-up, flowering date,
senescence date) were highly altered in exotic communities,
and 6) all these effects were similar between irrigation treatments.
The earlier green-up by exotic species suggests that some of the earlier green-up attributed to
climate change may be a result of an increase in abundance of exotics, and this deserves further study. Thus, our
our results suggest that there are key differences between novel ecosystems and the native ones that they replaced.
Is plant diversity an important predictor of ecosystem process rates?
Biodiversity is declining worldwide from human activities. In recent years,
we have focused on how diversity can impact community and ecosystem processes.
Species diversity may influence processes independently of, or
interactively with, the abiotic components of the environment. Species
diversity has two components, 1) richness, or the number
of species in a given area, and 2) evenness, or how evenly distributed biomass
or abundance is among species. Several high profile studies in the 1990's
found
that net primary productivity and resistance to invasions declined as species
richness was reduced in experimental plots (Naeem et al. 1994, Tilman et al.
1997, Hector et al. 1999).
We have been experimentally
varying the other component of diversity, evenness, in experimental grassland
plots. By varying evenness instead of (and in addition to) richness, plots with different levels of
diversity are created, but without the variability caused by different species
compositions. In the first experiment, which was done in an old field in 1997, we
found that total primary productivity decreased linearly as community
diversity (evenness) was reduced, and that it was largely invariant to changes
in species
composition. (Wilsey and Potvin
2000). A second experiment found that communities with lowered evenness
were less resistant to invasion by plants and spittle bugs (Wilsey and Polley
2002). Others found that species richness-productivity relationship were similar between communities
planted with equal relative abundances and communities with realistically unequal abundances across species (Wilsey
and Polley 2004, Isbell et al. 2009a,b), and that invasion resistance and NPP
can vary between extinction scenarios in prairie communities (Losure et al. 2007, Isbell et al. 2008).
Species that green-up early
in the growing season were especially important in preventing invasion because
their growth period matched the period of maximum invasion pressure (Losure et
al. 2007). Studies with litter decomposition found that higher evenness, but not
richness, resulted in higher decomposition rates, and that diversity effects were smaller than microtopographic
effects (Dickson and Wilsey 2009).
Species diversity partioning
What should we be measuring in biodiversity studies? Are species relative abundances
related to local extinction risk? Do changes in rarity (quantified with
evenness measures) occur before local extinctions (quantified with richness) or is rarity unrelated to extinction risk?
Under what conditions is seed limitation important and how do they alter these biodiversity components? Species
diversity has multiple components, and we are attempting to develop a
better understanding of how components are related and whether they respond
similarly to ecological processes. We have found that a diversity partitioning
approach provides us with a more complete understanding of diversity compared
to using single measures alone (Stirling
and Wilsey 2001, Wilsey et al. 2005b, Martin et al. 2005, Wilsey 2010).
Evidence from plant communities suggested that evenness and richness are acting
as diversity components (Stirling and Wilsey 2001) each responding in their own
way to changes in the environment, with richness responding
more to migration during seed dispersal events and evenness responding more to
competition intensity and ungulate grazing (Martin and Wilsey 2006, Wilsey
and Stirling 2007). Changes in evenness often precede (and predict) changes in
richness (Wilsey and Polley 2004, Wilsey and Stirling 2007, Wilsey et al.
2009). Thus, studies of both dimensions of diversity (evenness and
richness) can be more informative than studies with richness alone.
Recent Exciting Results
There are two ways to maintain stable biomass production in ecosystems
Exotic grassland species have stronger priority effects than native species
Past Interests:
We have studied how native ungulates (bison and a few elk) affect tallgrass prairie restoration success at Neal
Smith National Wildlife Refuge. Exlosures were erected and maintained for five years to study
how grazing has altered tallgrass prairies community development (Martin et al. 2005, Martin and Wilsey 2006).
The recruitment of rare prairie species into grass-dominated stands was higher with grazing than without
grazing, but an important finding was that rare species were not recruited without seed additions.
Selected Current and Past Projects
- MEND:
Maintenance of Exotic vs. Native Diversity
-
Effects of Dominant Species on Loess Hill Prairie Restorations
- Grazing
Effects on Plant and Ecosystem Processes
- Quantifying
Prairie Restoration Success
GRADUATE STUDENTS AND RECENT POSTDOCS
Kaitlin Barber, Ph.D. student
Andrew Kaul, Ph.D. student
Leanne Martin, Ph.D. 2013, M.S., May 2005, now Univ. Kansas
Yue Huang, Visiting student from Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
Xiaofei Li, Visiting student from Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
Forest Isbell, Ph.D., May 2010, now at Univ. Georgia
Kathryn Yurkonis, Ph.D., Jan. 2010, now Univ. North Dakota
Andrea Blong, M.S., May 2007
David Losure, M.S., May 2006
Xia Xu, Postdoc
Tim Dickson, Postdoc, now at Univ. Nebraska - Omaha
Pedram Daneshgar, Postdoc, now at Monmouth University, N.J.
SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND DATASETS FROM THE WILSEY LAB:(Incomplete List).
-
* denotes a graduate student; ** a postdoctoral fellow
- *Martin, L.M. and B.J. Wilsey. 2015. Novel, exotic-dominated grasslands exhibit altered patterns of beta diversity relative to native grasslands. Ecology 96:1042-1051
-
Wilsey, B.J., Barber, K.* and L.M. Martin*. 2015. Exotic grassland species have stronger priority effects than natives regardless of whether they are cultivated or wild genotypes. New Phytologist205:928-937
-
Polley, H.W., Derner, J.D., Jackson, R.B., Wilsey, B.J. and P.A. Fay. 2014. Impacts of climate change drivers on C4 grassland productivity: scaling driver effects through the plant
community. Journal of Experimental Botany 13:3415-3424[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J., **Daneshgar, P.P., Hofmockel, K. and H.W. Polley. 2014. Invaded grassland communities have altered stability-maintenance mechanisms but equal stability compared
to native communities. Ecology Letters 17:92-100[PDF]
-
*Martin, L.M., Polley, H.W., **Daneshgar, P.P., Harris, M.A. and B.J. Wilsey. 2014. Biodiversity, photosynthetic mode, and ecosystem services differ between native and novel ecosystems.
Oecologia 175:687-697[PDF]
-
Cardinale, B.J., Gross, K., Fritschie, K., Flombaum, P., Fox, J., Rixen, C., van Ruijven, J., Reich, P., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., and B.J. Wilsey. 2013. Can producer diversity simultaneously
increase the productivity and stability of ecosystems? A meta-analysis of 34 experiments. Ecology 94:1697-1708 [PDF]
-
*Huang, Y., *L.M. Martin, F.I. Isbell, and B.J. Wilsey. 2013. Is community persistence related to species diversity at planting? A test with tallgrass prairie species in a long-term field experiment.
Basic and Applied Ecology 14:199-207[PDF]
-
*Martin, L.M., and B.J. Wilsey. 2012. Assembly history alters alpha and beta diversity, exotic-native
proportions, and ecosystem functioning of restored prairie plant communities.
Journal of Applied Ecology 49:1436-1445[PDF]
-
*Yurkonis, K.A., Wilsey, B.J. and K.A. Moloney. 2012. Initial plant arrangement affects invasion resistance in experimental grassland plots. Journal of Vegetation Science 23:4-12
-
*Isbell, F., Calcagno, V., Hector, A., Connolly, J., Harpole, W.S., Reich, P.B., Scherer-Lorenzen, M.,
Schmid, B., Tilman, D., van Ruijven, J., Weigelt, A., Wilsey, B.J., Zavaleta, E.S. and M. Loreau. 2011.
High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services.Nature 477:199-202 [PDF]
-
Dickson, T.L., Hopwood, J. and B.J. Wilsey. 2012. Do priority effects benefit invasive plants more than native plants? An experiment with six grassland species.
Biological Invasions 14:2617-2621[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J., **Daneshgar, P.P., and H.W. Polley. 2011. Biodiversity, phenology and temporal niche differences
between native and novel exotic-dominated grasslands. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics13:265-276[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
-
Dornbush, M.E. and B.J. Wilsey. 2010. Experimental manipulation of soil depth alters species richness and co-occurrence in restored tallgrass prairie. Journal of Ecology 98:117-125
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J. 2010. An empirical comparison of beta diversity indices in
establishing prairies. Ecology
91:1984-1988
[PDF]
-
**Dickson, T.L., Wilsey, B.J., Busby, R.R. and D.L. Gebhart. 2010. A non-native
legume causes large community and ecosystem changes in both the presence and
absence of a cover crop. Biological Invasions12:65-76
-
Wilsey, B.J. 2010. Productivity and subordinate species response to dominant
grass species and seed source during restoration.Restoration Ecology
18:628-637
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J., **Teaschner, T.B., **Daneshgar, P.P., *Isbell, F.I. and H.W. Polley.
2009. Biodiversity maintenance mechanisms differ between native and novel
exotic-dominated communities. Ecology Letters
12:432-442
[PDF]
-
*Isbell, F.I., Polley, H.W. and B.J. Wilsey. 2009a. Species interaction
mechanisms maintain grassland plant species diversity. Ecology90:1821-
1830
[PDF]
-
*Isbell, F.I., Polley, H.W. and B.J. Wilsey. 2009b. Biodiversity, productivity,
and the temporal stability of productivity: patterns and processes. Ecology
Letters
12:443-451
[PDF]
-
**Dickson, T.L. and B.J. Wilsey. 2009. Biodiversity and tallgrass prairie
decomposition: the relative importance of species identity, evenness, richness
and microtopography.Plant Ecology201:639-649
-
*Losure, D.A., Wilsey, B.J. and K.A. Moloney. 2007. Evenness-invasibility
relationships differ between two extinction scenarios in tallgrass
prairie. Oikos.
116:87-98.
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B. and G. Stirling. 2007. Species richness and evenness respond in a
different manner to propabule density in developing prairie microcosm
communities. Plant Ecology.
190:259-273.
[PDF]
-
Polley, H.W., Wilsey, B.J. and J.D. Derner. 2007. Dominant species constrain
effects of species diversity on temporal variability in biomass production of
tallgrass prairie. Oikos.
116:2044-2052.
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J. and H.W. Polley. 2006.
Aboveground productivity and root-shoot allocation differ between native and
introduced grass species. Oecologia.
150:300-309.
[PDF]
-
*Martin, L.M. and B.J. Wilsey. 2006. Assessing grassland restoration success:
relative roles of seed additions and native ungulate activities. Journal of
Applied Ecology
43:1098-1110.
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J., *Martin, L.M. and H.W. Polley. 2005a.
Predicting plant extinction based on species-area curves in prairie fragments
with high beta richness. Conservation Biology.
19:1835-1841.
[PDF][Dataset][Appendix]
-
Wilsey, B.J. Chalcraft, D.R., Bowles, C.M., and M.R. Willig. 2005b.
Relationships among indices suggest that richness is an incomplete surrogate
for grassland biodiversity. Ecology
86:1178-1184.
[PDF]
-
*Martin, L.M., Moloney, K.A. and B.J. Wilsey. 2005. An assessment of grassland
restoration success using species diversity components. J. Applied Ecology
42:327-336.
[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J. and H.W. Polley. 2004. Realistically low species evenness does
not alter grassland species-richness-productivity relationships. Ecology
85:2693-2700.[PDF]
-
Wilsey, B.J. and H.W. Polley. 2003. Effects of seed additions and grazing
history on species diversity and aboveground productivity of sub-humid Texas
grasslands. Ecology 84:920-932.[PDF]
- Wilsey, B.J. and H.W. Polley. 2002. Reductions in grassland species
evenness increase dicot seedling invasion and spittle bug infestation.
Ecology
Letters 5:676-684.[PDF]
- Stirling, G. and B. Wilsey. 2001. Empirical relationships between
species
richness, evenness and proportional diversity.
American Naturalist 158:286-300.[PDF]
- Wilsey, B.J. and C. Potvin. 2000. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning:
the importance of species evenness in an old field. Ecology
81(4):887-892 Abstract
Date Last Modified: April 28, 2015
Copyright 2000 Brian J Wilsey