1. The biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR) constitutes one of the most fundamental yet challenging topics in ecology. Most described BPRs so far are based on relatively small grain sizes (typically smaller than 1ha), and understanding how the BPRs scale up from individual trees to communities of different sizes, a mission critical for biodiversity conservation and forest management, still remains elusive.2. Based on a unique 54.12-ha large-scale forest observational site in Northeastern China, where we georeferenced and measured approx. 90,000 trees in two consecutive inventories, we studied BPRs across a cascade of spatial scales using geostatistical analysis and bootstrapping. To explore the underlying mechanisms of the scale dependency of BPR, we further investigated the scale gradient in biodiversity and productivity, respectively, and assessed neighbourhood influences on individual trees.3. Across all the spatial scales, we found a consistent positive concave-down effect of tree species richness on forest productivity. The elasticity of substitution (θ)represented the degree to which species can substitute for each other in contributing to forest productivity. At the community level, the curvature of BPRs in terms of the elasticity of substitution (θ) declined from around 0.50 and converged at around 0.15, as the grain size increased from 0.01 to 1.00 ha, all else being equal. Similarly, at the individual tree level, neighbourhood diversity coefficient, a linear proxy of θ, declined from around 0.08 and converged at around 0.03, as neighbourhood size increased from 0.01 to 1.00 ha, all else being equal. Synthesis.Our study found a pronounced scale dependency of biodiversity-productivity relationship and quantified, for the first time, how biodiversity-productivity relationship scale up from 0.01 to 1.00 ha. Our findings suggest that biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship can be generally scale-dependent and, hence, one must factor in this effect in biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration projects. Our findings also indicate that biodiversity-productivity relationship, predominantly determined by biological processes (i.e. complementarity and diminishing marginal productivity) at a small scale, can be | 1107Journal of Ecology LUO et aL.
Forests play an important role in both regional and global C cycles. However, the spatial patterns of biomass C density and underlying factors in Northeast Asia remain unclear. Here, we characterized spatial patterns and important drivers of biomass C density for Northeast Asia, based on multisource data from in situ forest inventories, as well as remote sensing, bioclimatic, topographic, and human footprint data. We derived, for the first time, high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) maps of the current and future forest biomass C density for this region. Based on these maps, we estimated that current biomass C
Question: Forest ecosystems are the most important global repositories of terrestrial biodiversity. The mixed temperate forests in northeastern China constitute one of the most biodiverse temperate regions globally and provide nearly one-third of China's wood supply. We ask what are the spatial patterns and potential drivers of tree species diversity in mixed temperate forests.Location: Temperate, mixed forests of northeastern China.Methods: Using a large set of ground-source forest inventory data (FIN) and geospatial covariates derived from published raster layers, we compared different machinelearning and statistical models to study spatial patterns of tree species diversity and their underpinning drivers. Results:The spatial distribution of tree species diversity (species richness and evenness) varied greatly across northeastern China. Tree species diversity varied most with climatic (annual precipitation and annual mean temperature), topographic (elevation and slope), and anthropogenic factors. Anthropogenic factors affected tree species evenness (importance value = 13%) more than tree species richness (importance value = 9%). Based on these relationships, we mapped spatial patterns of tree diversity throughout the region at a 1 km × 1 km resolution. Conclusions:Our findings shed light on the processes behind community assembly and biodiversity patterns in mixed temperate forests in northeastern China, and provide a benchmark for future assessment of biodiversity. Our high-resolution tree species diversity maps can be useful to landowners and land management agencies in their decision-making processes about sustainable forest management, biodiversity conservation, and forest restoration -a priority task outlined by the recently implemented 2050 China National Forest Management Plan.
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