Journal ArticleDOI
Tree species richness promotes productivity in temperate forests through strong complementarity between species
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TLDR
This study generalises results from short-term experiments in grasslands to forest ecosystems and demonstrates that competition for light alone induces a positive effect of biodiversity on productivity, thus providing a new angle for explaining BEF relationships.Abstract:
Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 1211–1219
Abstract
Understanding the link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) is pivotal in the context of global biodiversity loss. Yet, long-term effects have been explored only weakly, especially for forests, and no clear evidence has been found regarding the underlying mechanisms. We explore the long-term relationship between diversity and productivity using a forest succession model. Extensive simulations show that tree species richness promotes productivity in European temperate forests across a large climatic gradient, mostly through strong complementarity between species. We show that this biodiversity effect emerges because increasing species richness promotes higher diversity in shade tolerance and growth ability, which results in forests responding faster to small-scale mortality events. Our study generalises results from short-term experiments in grasslands to forest ecosystems and demonstrates that competition for light alone induces a positive effect of biodiversity on productivity, thus providing a new angle for explaining BEF relationships.read more
Citations
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Higher levels of multiple ecosystem services are found in forests with more tree species, Suppl info
Lars Gamfeldt,Tord Snäll,Robert Bagchi,Micael Jonsson,Lena Gustafsson,Petter Kjellander,María C. Ruiz Jaen,Mats Fröberg,Johan Stendahl,Christopher D. Philipson,Grzegorz Mikusiński,Erik Andersson,Bertil Westerlund,Henrik Andrén,Fredrik Moberg,Jon Moen,Jan Bengtsson +16 more
TL;DR: It is reported that tree species richness in production forests shows positive to positively hump-shaped relationships with multiple ecosystem services, including production of tree biomass, soil carbon storage, berry production and game production potential.
Journal ArticleDOI
Higher levels of multiple ecosystem services are found in forests with more tree species
Lars Gamfeldt,Tord Snäll,Robert Bagchi,Micael Jonsson,Lena Gustafsson,Petter Kjellander,Maria C. Ruiz-Jaen,Mats Fröberg,Johan Stendahl,Christopher D. Philipson,Grzegorz Mikusiński,Erik Andersson,Erik Andersson,Bertil Westerlund,Henrik Andrén,Fredrik Moberg,Jon Moen,Jan Bengtsson +17 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report that tree species richness in production forests shows positive to positively hump-shaped relationships with multiple ecosystem services, including production of tree biomass, soil carbon storage, berry production and game production potential.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why biodiversity is important to the functioning of real‐world ecosystems
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address some of the persistent criticisms regarding experimental BEF research and argue that these have been overstated, contrary to some suggestions, many putative artifacts attributed to experiments render their conclusions about BEF links stronger, rather than weaker.
Journal ArticleDOI
Resistance of European tree species to drought stress in mixed versus pure forests: evidence of stress release by inter-specific facilitation.
TL;DR: It is revealed that tree resistance and resilience to drought stress can be modified distinctly through species mixing and the far-reaching implications that these differences in stress response under intra- and inter-specific environments have for forest ecosystem dynamics and management under climate change are discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Canopy space filling and tree crown morphology in mixed-species stands compared with monocultures
TL;DR: How canopy structure and crown morphology in mixed stands can differ from pure stands and how this depends on the selection of tree species and interactions between them is reviewed.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge
D. U. Hooper,F. S. Chapin,John J. Ewel,Andy Hector,P. Inchausti,Sandra Lavorel,John H. Lawton,David M. Lodge,Michel Loreau,Shahid Naeem,Bernhard Schmid,Heikki Setälä,Amy J. Symstad,John Vandermeer,David A. Wardle,David A. Wardle +15 more
TL;DR: Understanding this complexity, while taking strong steps to minimize current losses of species, is necessary for responsible management of Earth's ecosystems and the diverse biota they contain.
Journal ArticleDOI
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges
Michel Loreau,Shahid Naeem,Pablo Inchausti,Jan Bengtsson,J. P. Grime,Andy Hector,David U. Hooper,Michael A. Huston,Dave Raffaelli,Bernhard Schmid,David Tilman,David A. Wardle +11 more
TL;DR: Larger numbers of species are probably needed to reduce temporal variability in ecosystem processes in changing environments and to determine how biodiversity dynamics, ecosystem processes, and abiotic factors interact.
Journal ArticleDOI
Positive interactions in communities.
TL;DR: Evidence for the importance of positive interactions - facilitations - in community organization and dynamics has accrued to the point where it warrants formal inclusion into community ecology theory, as it has been in evolutionary biology.
Journal ArticleDOI
A distance-based framework for measuring functional diversity from multiple traits
TL;DR: A highly flexible distance-based framework to measure different facets of FD in multidimensional trait space from any distance or dissimilarity measure, any number of traits, and from different trait types (i.e., quantitative, semi-quantitative, and qualitative).
Journal ArticleDOI
Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used a well-replicated field experiment, in which species diversity was directly controlled, to show that ecosystem productivity in 147 grassland plots increased significantly with plant biodiversity.
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