More Like this

1. Diversity and prosocial behavior

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb2432  

   Baldassarri, Delia; Abascal, Maria (September 2020, Science)

   null (Ed.)

   Immigration and globalization have spurred interest in the effects of ethnic diversity in Western societies. Most scholars focus on whether diversity undermines trust, social capital, and collective goods provision. However, the type of prosociality that helps heterogeneous societies function is different from the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together. Social cohesion in multiethnic societies depends on whether prosocial behavior extends beyond close-knit networks and in-group boundaries. We identify two features of modern societies—social differentiation and economic interdependence—that can set the stage for constructive interactions with dissimilar others. Whether societal adaptations to diversity lead toward integration or division depends on the positions occupied by minorities and immigrants in the social structure and economic system, along with the institutional arrangements that determine their political inclusion. 

   more » « less
2. Time, space, and diversity

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2022.09.002  

   Li, Xin; Syed, Mubarak Hussain (June 2023, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology)
3. Plant diversity and grasses increase root biomass in a rainfall and grassland diversity manipulation

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1259809  

   Podzikowski, Laura Y.; Heffernan, Megan M.; Bever, James D. (November 2023, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)

   The loss of plant productivity with declining diversity is well established, exceeding other global change drivers including drought. These patterns are most clearly established for aboveground productivity, it remains poorly understood whether productivity increases associated with diversity are replicated belowground. To address this gap, we established a plant diversity-manipulation experiment in 2018. It is a full factorial manipulation of plant species richness and community composition, and precipitation. Three and five years post-establishment, two bulk soil cores (20cm depth) were collected and composited from each plot and were processed for roots to determine belowground biomass as root standing crop. We observed a strong positive relationship between richness and aboveground production and belowground biomass, generating positive combined above and belowground with diversity. Root standing crop increased 1.4-fold from years three to five. Grass communities produced more root biomass (monoculture mean 463.9 ± 410.3g m⁻²), and the magnitude of the relationship between richness and root standing crop was greatest within those communities. Legume communities produced the fewest roots (monoculture mean 212.2 ± 155.1g m⁻²), and belowground standing crop was not affected by diversity. Root standing crops in year three were 1.8 times higher under low precipitation conditions, while in year five we observed comparable root standing crops between precipitation treatments. Plant family was a strong mediator of increased belowground biomass observed with diversity, with single family grass and aster families generating 1.7 times greater root standing crops in six compared to single species communities, relationships between diversity and aboveground production were consistently observed in both single-family and multiple family communities. Diverse communities with species from multiple families generated only 1.3 times the root standing crop compared to monoculture average root biomass. We surprisingly observe diverse single family communities can generate increases in root standing crops that exceed those generated by diverse multiple family communities, highlighting the importance of plant richness within plant family for a given community. These patterns have potential implications for understanding the interactions of multiple global change drivers as changes in both precipitation and plant community composition do alter whether plant production aboveground is translated belowground biomass. 

   more » « less
4. Diversity, networks, and innovation: A text analytic approach to measuring expertise diversity

   https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2022.34  

   Lungeanu, Alina; Whalen, Ryan; Wu, Y. Jasmine; DeChurch, Leslie A.; Contractor, Noshir S. (March 2023, Network Science)

   Dmitry Zaytsev (Ed.)

   Abstract Despite the importance of diverse expertise in helping solve difficult interdisciplinary problems, measuring it is challenging and often relies on proxy measures and presumptive correlates of actual knowledge and experience. To address this challenge, we propose a text-based measure that uses researcher’s prior work to estimate their substantive expertise. These expertise estimates are then used to measure team-level expertise diversity by determining similarity or dissimilarity in members’ prior knowledge and skills. Using this measure on 2.8 million team invented patents granted by the US Patent Office, we show evidence of trends in expertise diversity over time and across team sizes, as well as its relationship with the quality and impact of a team’s innovation output. 

   more » « less
5. The Drivers of Diversity: Integrated genetic and hormonal cues regulate neural diversity

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2022.07.007  

   Hamid, Aisha; Gutierrez, Andrew; Munroe, Jordan; Syed, Mubarak Hussain (June 2023, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology)