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Hydraulic diversity stabilizes productivity in a large-scale subtropical tree biodiversity experiment

Authors :
Bernhard Schmid
Andreas Fichtner
Keping Ma
Shan Li
Matthias Kunz
Zhiyao Tang
Helge Bruelheide
Florian Schnabel
Bo Yang
Kathryn E. Barry
Goddert von Oheimb
Julia Schwarz
Claas-Thido Pfaff
Werner Härdtle
Franca J. Bongers
Xiaojuan Liu
Jürgen Bauhus
Christian Wirth
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2021.

Abstract

Extreme climatic events threaten forests and their climate mitigation potential globally. Understanding the drivers promoting ecosystem stability is therefore considered crucial to mitigate adverse climate change effects on forests. Here, we use structural equation models to explain how tree species richness, asynchronous species dynamics and diversity in hydraulic traits affect the stability of forest productivity along an experimentally manipulated biodiversity gradient ranging from 1 to 24 tree species. Tree species richness improved stability by increasing species asynchrony. That is, at higher species richness, inter-annual variation in productivity among tree species buffered the community against stress-related productivity declines. This effect was mediated by the diversity of species’ hydraulic traits regarding drought tolerance and stomatal control, but not by the community-weighted means of these traits. The identified mechanisms by which tree species richness stabilizes forest productivity emphasize the importance of hydraulically diverse, mixed-species forests to adapt to climate change.

Details

Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....b0c8822636eaca9cab38b18a801bae69
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.06.425434