Biodiversity mediates ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability

Abstract

A rich body of evidence from local-scale experiments and observational studies has revealed stabilizing effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. However, whether these effects emerge across entire regions and continents remains largely overlooked. Here we combine data on the distribution of more than 57,500 plant species and remote-sensing observations throughout the entire Western Hemisphere to investigate the role of multiple facets of plant diversity (species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and functional diversity) in mediating the sensitivity of ecosystems to climate variability at the regional-scale over the past 20 years. We show that, across multiple biomes, regions of greater plant diversity exhibit lower sensitivity (more stable over time) to temperature variability at the interannual and seasonal-scales. While these areas can display lower sensitivity to interannual variability in precipitation, they emerge as highly sensitive to precipitation seasonality. Conserving landscapes of greater diversity may help stabilize ecosystem functioning under climate change, possibly securing the continuous provisions of productivity-related ecosystem service to people.

Bedrock mediates responses of ecosystem productivity to climate variability

“…Spatial distribution of ecologically sensitive regions identified in this study is remarkably consistent with previous studies using different sensitivity metrics 4,44 , supporting the robustness of the pattern revealed in our study. Variability of ecosystem sensitivity has previously been suggested to be affected by many ecosystem attributes, such as species niche partitioning 50 , biodiversity 51,52 , ecosystem successional stage 53 , and landscape topography 54 . Our study suggests that at the global scale, properties of bedrock and its weathering products also have a significant effect on ecosystem sensitivity to climatic variability.…”

Global vegetation greenness interannual variability and its evolvement in recent decades

“…Biodiversity plays an important role in the vegetation greenness IAV of terrestrial ecosystems. Oliveira et al (2022) found biodiversity mediates ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability-regions with greater plant diversity exhibit lower sensitivity to temperature variability at the interannual and seasonal scales and lower sensitivity to precipitation variability at the interannual scales. The increasing interannual variability of vegetation greenness might be related to decreasing biodiversity, particularly in China's Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) regions, where GFGP forests are mostly monocultures or compositionally simple mixed forests (Hua et al 2016).…”

Leaf gene expression trajectories during the growing season are consistent between sites and years in American beech

“…Trees over their long lifespan experience a multitude of severe conditions, but climate change is shifting essential phenological events and intensifying many of the environmental deviations. These deviations can exceed the reaction norms of trees [3][4][5][6][7][8]. For temperate trees, shifts in the spring arrival, and changing precipitation regimes can affect the phenological scheduling of vital biological events such as vessel activation [9], the acquisition of soil nutrients [10], flowering [3,[11][12][13], leaf flushing [14][15][16][17][18], xylogenesis [19], seeding and fruiting [20][21][22], and senescence-induced nutrient re-uptake from leaves [16,[23][24][25][26].…”