Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 29, 2025
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Two-Dimensional Visualization and Quantification of Labile, Inorganic Plant Nutrients and Contaminants in Soil
Published on: September 1, 2020
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Landscape modification and nutrient-driven instability at a distance
Kevin S McCann1, Kevin Cazelles1,2, Andrew S MacDougall1
1University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road, Guelph Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada.
Ecology Letters
|November 22, 2020
Summary
Nutrient enrichment destabilizes ecosystems, causing species loss and reduced function. Human activities amplify these effects across landscapes, highlighting the need to manage nutrient pathways for ecosystem stability.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Environmental Science
- Theoretical Ecology
Background:
- Nutrient addition can destabilize food webs (paradox of enrichment).
- Increased nutrient loading can cause competitive exclusion and reduce food web diversity.
- A framework to predict nutrient impacts on landscape-level food web stability is lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a coherent framework predicting nutrient impacts on food web stability across landscapes.
- To investigate how anthropogenic resource and organism displacement affects ecological stability.
- To synthesize contemporary food web and meta-ecosystem theory with empirical data.
Main Methods:
- Combined contemporary food web and meta-ecosystem theory.
- Developed models to predict nutrient impacts on stability and function.
- Integrated theoretical synthesis with empirical data on ecosystem imbalances.
Main Results:
- Nutrient additions are expected to decrease stability and function in human-impacted regions.
- Destabilization is likely driven by competitive exclusion of edible plant species.
- Spatial nutrient transport amplifies instabilities over vast distances in modified landscapes.
Conclusions:
- Human modification connects ecosystems, causing widespread, costly nutrient-driven instabilities.
- Slowing spatial nutrient pathways is a potent strategy for stabilizing degraded ecosystems.
- Empirical evidence shows growing frequency of distant, propagating ecosystem imbalances.
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