Species interactions increase the temporal stability of community productivity in Pinus sylvestris–Fagus sylvatica mixtures across Europe

Abstract

611. There is increasing evidence that species diversity enhances the temporal stability of 62 community productivity in different ecosystems, although its effect at population and tree 63 levels seems to be negative or neutral. Asynchrony between species was found to be one of 64 the main drivers of this stabilizing process. However, scarce research in this area has been 65 undertaken in forest communities, so determining the effect of species mixing on the stability 66 of forest productivity as well as the identity of the main drivers involved still poses a 67 challenging task. 3. Mixed stands showed a higher temporal stability of basal area growth than monospecific 76 stands at community level, but not at population or individual tree levels. Asynchrony 77 between species growth in mixtures was related to temporal stability, but neither overyielding 78 nor asynchrony between species growth in monospecific stands were linked to temporal 79 stability. Therefore, species interactions modify between-species asynchrony in mixed stands. 80Accordingly, temporal shifts in species interactions were related to asynchrony and to the 81 mixing effect on temporal stability. 4. Synthesis. Our findings confirm that species mixing can stabilize productivity at 83 community level whereas there is a neutral or negative effect on stability at population and 84 individual tree level. The contrasting findings as regards the relationships between temporal 85 stability and species asynchrony in mixed and monospecific stands suggest that the main 86 driver in the stabilizing process is the temporal niche complementarity between species rather 87 than differences in species specific responses to environmental conditions. 89 Keywords 91Temporal variability; mixed-species forests; plant-plant interactions; overyielding; 92 asynchrony; niche complementarity; organizational levels; 93 94

How neighbourhood interactions control the temporal stability and resilience to drought of trees in mountain forests

“…Studies focusing on diversity effects on temporal stability or resistance and recovery to extreme events have been mainly carried out at the stand scale, that is, considering the whole community (DeClerck et al, 2006;del Río et al, 2017;Hutchison, Gravel, Guichard, & Potvin, 2018;Jourdan, Lebourgeois et al, 2019;Merlin et al, 2015). Yet, if we aim at understanding the role of interspecific interactions in promoting diversity effects on temporal stability and resilience, we need to focus on the local scale at which individual trees interact with their neighbours.…”

ENSO and NAO affect long‐term leaf litter dynamics and stoichiometry of Scots pine and European beech mixedwoods

“…Barbeito et al, 2017;Del Río et al, 2017;González de Andrés et al, 2017;González de Andrés et al, 2018;Metz et al, 2016;Pretzsch et al, 2015), little is known about its litterfall dynamics and nutrient cycling. Barbeito et al, 2017;Del Río et al, 2017;González de Andrés et al, 2017;González de Andrés et al, 2018;Metz et al, 2016;Pretzsch et al, 2015), little is known about its litterfall dynamics and nutrient cycling.…”

EuMIXFOR empirical forest mensuration and ring width data from pure and mixed stands of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) through Europe

“…The original data set covers attributes at the tree level, increments cores, stand and triplet characteristics and has been used for different purposes by Pretzsch et al (2015Pretzsch et al ( , 2016, Río et al (2016bRío et al ( , 2017, Dirnberger et al (2016) and Forrester et al (2017). The data set presented here describes the original data, but ongoing projects can complement the published data by additional measurements of resource supply, nutritional status and wood properties.…”

“…The available core data allow retrospective analyses and can be linked to corresponding tree attributes, e.g. Pretzsch et al (2016) or Río et al (2017). Reconstructing stand characteristics provides temporal stand level information, e.g.…”