Plant traits alone are poor predictors of ecosystem properties and long-term ecosystem functioning

Abstract

Earth is home to over 350,000 vascular plant species that differ in their traits in innumerable ways. A key challenge is to predict how natural or anthropogenically driven changes in the identity, abundance and diversity of co-occurring plant species drive important ecosystem-level properties such as biomass production or carbon storage. Here, we analyse the extent to which 42 different ecosystem properties can be predicted by 41 plant traits in 78 experimentally manipulated grassland plots over 10 years. Despite the unprecedented number of traits analysed, the average percentage of variation in ecosystem properties jointly explained was only moderate (32.6%) within individual years, and even much lower (12.7%) across years. Most other studies linking ecosystem properties to plant traits analysed no more than six traits and, when including only six traits in our analysis, the average percentage of variation explained in across-year levels of ecosystem properties dropped to 4.8%. Furthermore, we found on average only 12.2% overlap in significant predictors among ecosystem properties, indicating that a small set of key traits able to explain multiple ecosystem properties does not exist. Our results therefore suggest that there are specific limits to the extent to which traits per se can predict the long-term functional consequences of biodiversity change, so that data on additional drivers, such as interacting abiotic factors, may be required to improve predictions of ecosystem property levels.

Invertebrate functional traits and terrestrial nutrient cycling: Insights from a global meta‐analysis

“…In the last few decades, it has been proposed that investigating the nature of species' roles in ecosystems using morphological, behavioural and/or physiological traits will improve prediction of ecosystem processes (de Bello et al, 2010;Eviner & Chapin III, 2003;Petchey & Gaston, 2006;Wong et al, 2019). This has been mostly upheld in concerted analyses to resolve relationships between functional traits and ecosystem functioning across the diversity of plants (De Deyn et al, 2008;Diaz et al, 2004;Funk et al, 2017;Lavorel & Garnier, 2002; but see van der Plas et al, 2020). Whether or not trait-based approaches apply to animals remains less clear because efforts to deliberately link animal functional traits to ecosystem processes have lagged (Brousseau et al, 2018;Laigle et al, 2018;Moretti et al, 2017;Pey et al, 2014;Schmitz et al, 2015).…”

Biodiversity facets affect community surface temperature via 3D canopy structure in grassland communities

“…They also differ greatly in their ability to transport and transpire water. For example, stomatal conductance measured in our experimental species varied by a factor of 7.4 (data used in Bachmann et al, 2015;Schroeder-Georgi et al, 2016;van der Plas et al, 2020). Such species differences may translate into a patchy distribution of canopy surfaces.…”

Aboveground and Belowground Plant Traits Explain Latitudinal Patterns in Topsoil Fungal Communities From Tropical to Cold Temperate Forests

“…It is necessary to determine the extent to which plant traits explain variations in soil processes. However, few studies have attempted to evaluate the connections between plant functional traits such as leaf and root morphology and nutrient content and soil fungal community structure across broad environmental gradients ( Chua and Potts, 2018 ; Buzzard et al, 2019 ; Van der Plas et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020 ).…”