Functional and phylogenetic diversity promote litter decomposition across terrestrial ecosystems

Xiao, Wenya; Chen, Chen; Huang, Zhiqun; Chen, Han Y. H.

doi:10.1111/geb.13181

Cited by 37 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…This result not only confirms previous results from Porre et al (2020) and Srivastava et al (2009) but also expands to a wider range of litter species richness in the mixtures (up to 12 species in our dataset) compared with mainly two species in Porre et al (2020). However, it contrasts previous results that did find an overall positive effect of litter mixing on decomposition rates (Gartner & Cardon, 2004; Kou et al, 2020; Mori et al, 2020; Xiao et al, 2020). This contrast could result from the kind of analysis done in the different studies (see Table ).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Soil fauna accelerate litter mixture decomposition globally, especially in dry environments

et al. 2022

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1. More than half of the net primary production in terrestrial ecosystems returns to the soil through leaf litter fall and decomposition. In terrestrial ecosystems, litter constitutes a mixture of mainly senescent foliage from multiple species.Yet, the effect of litter mixing on litter decomposition rate remains ambiguous. Quantification of the soil fauna contribution and inclusion of their interaction with litter could remove the prevailing ambiguity, as soil fauna might influence the direction and magnitude of litter mixture effects on decomposition.2. We carried out a global meta-analysis to elucidate how soil fauna influenced litter mixture decomposition rate based on 55 published studies with 873 fauna inclusion/exclusion observations in field litterbag experiments. We hypothesized that soil fauna inclusion in litter mixture experiments would cause a positive change in the magnitude of mixed litter decomposition. That is, the presence of soil fauna would lead to synergistic litter mixture effects while the absence of soil fauna would lead to antagonistic litter mixture effects. Furthermore, we hypothesized that soil fauna would have a greater positive impact on the litter mixture effect in environments with low precipitation.3. While litter mixture had a neutral effect on decomposition on average across studies, non-additive mixture effects were common, with a key role for soil fauna, which generally enhanced decomposition rate compared to the component single-species litters. In contrast, fauna exclusion resulted in diminished decomposition rate overall. The overall synergistic soil fauna effect on litter mixture decomposition increased under low precipitation. Under high precipitation, the litter mixture effect was positive in the absence of soil fauna but non-significant in the presence of fauna. Climate imposes a great effect on litter mixture, with synergistic effects increasing towards the equator. 4. Synthesis. These results highlight the importance of soil fauna in mixed litter decomposition, most strongly in dry environments. In this era of global climate change, where some regions are projected to become drier, soil fauna might compensate the expected slower decomposition of litter by increasingly enhancing litter mixture decomposition.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Soil fauna accelerate litter mixture decomposition globally, especially in dry environments

et al. 2022

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“…Second, according to the previous studies (Cadotte, 2015;Flynn et al, 2011;Xiao et al, 2020), a set of conceptual diagrams containing all potential relationships of structural equation models (SEMs) were used to examine the potential pathways linking variables (Figure S9 of Appendix S1). The best fitting model was selected based on the results of the SEMs comparisons (Flynn et al, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As previous studies did (Craven et al, 2018;Le Bagousse-Pinguet et al, 2019;Pollock et al, 2017), we selected those nine potential diversity metrics a priori to represent the three facets of biodiversity within regional communities. We examined the statistical behaviours and collinearity of all the biodiversity metrics (Flynn et al, 2011;Gross et al, 2017;Xiao et al, 2020). Hs, FDis and FPD were finally selected to represent taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity in this study.…”

Section: Biodiversity Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unravelling biodiversity–productivity relationships across a large temperate forest region

Qiao

Zhang

et al. 2021

Functional Ecology

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1. Biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR) has become a central issue of ecology and conservation biology. The current understanding of BPR mainly comes from local scales, which is, however, difficult to extend to the BPR pattern at the regional scale owing to the scale dependence of regional communities. 2. To elucidate the BPR at the regional communities across multiple spatial scales, we investigated the 328 plots with about 30,000 trees across 700,000 km 2 regional area in the temperate forests. In this study, the n closest plots were aggregated to form regional clusters representing the spatial scale characterized by the spatial extent of regional communities, which were used to explore the relationships of multiple facets of biodiversity (i.e. taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity) with the productivity of regional communities.3. Our study provides insight into the discrepancy among taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic biodiversity in modulating productivity across the different specific biogeographical clusters within a large regional area. We found that the spatial extent of the tree community could change the importance of the multiple facets of biodiversity on productivity. Phylogenetic diversity may be a better driver of productivity at the smaller spatial scale of the regional communities. In contrast, taxonomic diversity appears to be more predominant in affecting productivity at the broader spatial scale. 4. Our results suggest that the understanding of the BPR patterns benefited from the multiple facets of biodiversity. The findings highlight the scale dependence of the BPRs, representing the significance of the spatial extent of the regional communities on them. This would improve our abilities to interpret and predict temperate forest productivity across the different spatial scales of the regional communities.

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“…The positive effect of PD on ecosystem functions may due to the niche complementary effect, whereby an increasing evolutionary distance among species promotes increasing niche space in the community (Srivastava et al, 2012). This evolutionary divergence inevitably generates ecological differentiation among species, which can further reduce the overlap of resource use among co-occurring (sympatric) species and improve their resource-use efficiency as well as ecosystem functions (Cadotte et al, 2008;Cadotte et al, 2009;Xiao et al, 2020). For example, PD indirectly promoted multifunctionality by augmenting the structural complexity of stands and light capture efficiency in a temperate forest (Yuan et al, 2020).…”

Section: Impact Of Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity On Ecosystem Multifunctionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity Regulate Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Semi-Arid Grassland During Succession

Wang

Lü

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) is crucial for understanding the processes of ecological restoration in semi-arid regions. However, partitioning the relative influence of various biodiversity attributes, namely taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, on EMF during secondary succession is still unclear. This study aimed to bridge the gap by employing field measurements and the chronosequence approach at 21 plots with different stand ages and precipitation conditions on the Loess Plateau of China. For diversity indices, we calculated the Shannon–Wiener diversity index, Simpson’s dominance index, Pielou evenness index, community weighted mean (CWM), functional variance (FDvar), and Faith’s phylogenetic diversity (PD) based on the empirically measured composition and traits of plant species. The EMF was expressed as the averaged value of eight function variables (including aboveground biomass, root biomass, soil total carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus content, soil organic carbon, available nitrogen and available phosphorus content). The results showed that species evenness and CWM of leaf dry matter content (LDMC) significantly increased yet the CWM of specific leaf area (SLA) decreased with stand age, indicating the resource-use strategy of the plants became more conservative through succession into its later stages. The EMF increased with both stand age and mean annual precipitation. The structural equation model revealed that stand age, soil water content (SWC), and the multiple diversity indices altogether accounted for 56.0% of the variation in the EMF. PD and the CWMs of plant height and LDMC had positive effects on the EMF, and the FDvar of leaf nitrogen had negative effects on EMF. However, the Shannon Wiener diversity had no significant effect on the EMF. Our results suggest that functional and phylogenetic diversity are more important than taxonomic diversity in predicting EMF, and that multidimensional biodiversity indices should be jointly considered to better predict EMF during the succession of semiarid grasslands.

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Functional and phylogenetic diversity promote litter decomposition across terrestrial ecosystems

Cited by 37 publications

References 47 publications

Soil fauna accelerate litter mixture decomposition globally, especially in dry environments

Soil fauna accelerate litter mixture decomposition globally, especially in dry environments

Unravelling biodiversity–productivity relationships across a large temperate forest region

Plant Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity Regulate Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Semi-Arid Grassland During Succession

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