Biodiversity across trophic levels drives multifunctionality in highly diverse forests

Schuldt, Andreas; Aßmann, Thorsten; Brezzi, Matteo; Buscot, François; Eichenberg, David; Gutknecht, Jessica; Härdtle, Werner; He, Jin Sheng; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria; Kühn, Peter; Liu, Xiaojuan; Ma, Keping; Niklaus, Pascal A.; Pietsch, Katherina A.; Purahong, Witoon; Scherer‐Lorenzen, Michael; Schmid, Bernhard; Scholten, Thomas; Staab, Michael; Tang, Zhiyao; Trogisch, Stefan; Oheimb, Goddert von; Wirth, Christian; Wubet, Tesfaye; Zhu, Chao; Bruelheide, Helge

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-05421-z

Cited by 200 publications

(185 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…As smaller patches have lower species numbers, the loss of species should have more pronounced effects on ecosystem functioning in such patches. Such shifts in multitrophic diversity have consequences for functioning (Schuldt et al 2018). At the level of single ecosystem functions, we did not find a consistent trend toward positive interaction effects, with positive interactions for some functions, and negative interactions or no trend for others.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 84%

Forest fragmentation modulates effects of tree species richness and composition on ecosystem multifunctionality

Hertzog

Boonyarittichaikij

Dekeukeleire

et al. 2019

Ecology

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Forest fragments in highly disturbed landscapes provide important ecosystem services ranging from acting as biodiversity reservoir to providing timber or regulating hydrology. Managing the tree species richness and composition of these fragments to optimize their functioning and the deliverance of multiple ecosystem services is of great practical relevance. However, both the strength and direction of tree species richness and tree species composition effects on forest ecosystem multifunctionality may depend on the landscape context in which these forest remnants are embedded. Taking advantage of an observatory network of 53 temperate forest plots varying in tree species richness, tree species composition, and fragmentation intensity we measured 24 ecosystem functions spanning multiple trophic levels and analyzed how tree species diversity-multifunctionality relationships changed with fragmentation intensity. Our results show that fragmentation generally increases multifunctionality and strengthens its positive relationship with diversity, possibly due to edge effects. In addition, different tree species combinations optimize functioning under different fragmentation levels. We conclude that management and restoration of forest fragments aimed at maximizing ecosystem multifunctionality should be tailored to the specific landscape context. As forest fragmentation will continue, tree diversity will become increasingly important to maintain forest functioning.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 84%

Forest fragmentation modulates effects of tree species richness and composition on ecosystem multifunctionality

Hertzog

Boonyarittichaikij

Dekeukeleire

et al. 2019

Ecology

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“…This has yet hardly been shown when optimizing for multiple ES. In addition, previous studies have found that maintaining multiple ES is best supported by heterogeneity, for example through diversity in forest species and plant functional traits (Felipe‐Lucia et al, ; Schuldt et al, ). This finding applies also for the landscapes scale, when various LULC types provide different ES to different extents (Plas et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Knoke

Paul

Rammig

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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Conversion of tropical forests is among the primary causes of global environmental change. The loss of their important environmental services has prompted calls to integrate ecosystem services (ES) in addition to socio‐economic objectives in decision‐making. To test the effect of accounting for both ES and socio‐economic objectives in land‐use decisions, we develop a new dynamic approach to model deforestation scenarios for tropical mountain forests. We integrate multi‐objective optimization of land allocation with an innovative approach to consider uncertainty spaces for each objective. These uncertainty spaces account for potential variability among decision‐makers, who may have different expectations about the future. When optimizing only socio‐economic objectives, the model continues the past trend in deforestation (1975–2015) in the projected land‐use allocation (2015–2070). Based on indicators for biomass production, carbon storage, climate and water regulation, and soil quality, we show that considering multiple ES in addition to the socio‐economic objectives has heterogeneous effects on land‐use allocation. It saves some natural forest if the natural forest share is below 38%, and can stop deforestation once the natural forest share drops below 10%. For landscapes with high shares of forest (38%–80% in our study), accounting for multiple ES under high uncertainty of their indicators may, however, accelerate deforestation. For such multifunctional landscapes, two main effects prevail: (a) accelerated expansion of diversified non‐natural areas to elevate the levels of the indicators and (b) increased landscape diversification to maintain multiple ES, reducing the proportion of natural forest. Only when accounting for vascular plant species richness as an explicit objective in the optimization, deforestation was consistently reduced. Aiming for multifunctional landscapes may therefore conflict with the aim of reducing deforestation, which we can quantify here for the first time. Our findings are relevant for identifying types of landscapes where this conflict may arise and to better align respective policies.

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“…Forests play a central role in hosting global terrestrial biodiversity and providing important ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration or timber production (FAO 2010;Watson et al 2018). This role, however, can be critically altered by ongoing dramatic global declines in biodiversity (IPBES 2019), as biodiversity has been demonstrated to enhance forest multifunctionality (Gamfeldt et al 2013;van der Plas et al 2016;Schuldt et al 2018). During the last decade, numerous studies provided evidence for a positive net biodiversity effect on primary productivity (overyielding) in forests (Morin et al 2011;Paquette & Messier 2011;Zhang et al 2012;Liang et al 2016;Tobner et al 2016;Grossman et al 2017;Fichtner et al 2018;Huang et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neighbour species richness and local structural variability modulate aboveground allocation patterns and crown morphology of individual trees

et al. 2019

Self Cite

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Local neighbourhood interactions are considered a main driver for biodiversity–productivity relationships in forests. Yet, the structural responses of individual trees in species mixtures and their relation to crown complementarity remain poorly understood. Using a large‐scale forest experiment, we studied the impact of local tree species richness and structural variability on above‐ground wood volume allocation patterns and crown morphology. We applied terrestrial laser scanning to capture the three‐dimensional structure of trees and their temporal dynamics. We found that crown complementarity and crown plasticity increased with species richness. Trees growing in species‐rich neighbourhoods showed enhanced aboveground wood volume both in trunks and branches. Over time, neighbourhood diversity induced shifts in wood volume allocation in favour of branches, in particular for morphologically flexible species. Our results demonstrate that diversity‐mediated shifts in allocation pattern and crown morphology are a fundamental mechanism for crown complementarity and may be an important driver of overyielding.

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Biodiversity across trophic levels drives multifunctionality in highly diverse forests

Cited by 200 publications

References 68 publications

Forest fragmentation modulates effects of tree species richness and composition on ecosystem multifunctionality

Forest fragmentation modulates effects of tree species richness and composition on ecosystem multifunctionality

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Neighbour species richness and local structural variability modulate aboveground allocation patterns and crown morphology of individual trees

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