TY - JOUR

T1 - The significance of tree-tree interactions for forest ecosystem functioning

AU - Trogisch, Stefan

AU - Liu, Xiaojuan

AU - Rutten, Gemma

AU - Xue, Kai

AU - Bauhus, Jürgen

AU - Brose, Ulrich

AU - Bu, Wensheng

AU - Cesarz, Simone

AU - Chesters, Douglas

AU - Connolly, John

AU - Cui, Xiaoyong

AU - Eisenhauer, Nico

AU - Guo, Liangdong

AU - Haider, Sylvia

AU - Härdtle, Werner

AU - Kunz, Matthias

AU - Liu, Lingli

AU - Ma, Zeqing

AU - Neumann, Steffen

AU - Sang, Weiguo

AU - Schuldt, Andreas

AU - Tang, Zhiyao

AU - van Dam, Nicole M.

AU - von Oheimb, Goddert

AU - Wang, Ming Qiang

AU - Wang, Shaopeng

AU - Weinhold, Alexander

AU - Wirth, Christian

AU - Wubet, Tesfaye

AU - Xu, Xingliang

AU - Yang, Bo

AU - Zhang, Naili

AU - Zhu, Chao Dong

AU - Ma, Keping

AU - Wang, Yanfen

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Gesellschaft für Ökologie

PY - 2021/9/1

Y1 - 2021/9/1

N2 - Global change exposes forest ecosystems to many risks including novel climatic conditions, increased frequency of climatic extremes and sudden emergence and spread of pests and pathogens. At the same time, forest landscape restoration has regained global attention as an integral strategy for climate change mitigation. Owing to unpredictable future risks and the need for new forests that provide multiple ecosystem services, mixed-species forests have been advocated for this purpose. However, the successful establishment of mixed forests requires intrinsic knowledge of biodiversity's role for forest ecosystem functioning. In this respect, a better understanding of tree-tree interactions and how they contribute to observed positive tree species richness effects on key ecosystem functions is critical. Here, we review the current knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of tree-tree interactions and argue that positive net biodiversity effects at the community scale may emerge from the dominance of positive over negative interactions at the local neighbourhood scale. In a second step, we demonstrate how tree-tree interactions and the immediate tree neighbourhood's role can be systematically assessed in a tree diversity experiment. The expected results will improve predictions about the effects of tree interactions on ecosystem functioning based on general principles. We argue that this knowledge is urgently required to guide the design of tree species mixtures for the successful establishment of newly planted forests.

AB - Global change exposes forest ecosystems to many risks including novel climatic conditions, increased frequency of climatic extremes and sudden emergence and spread of pests and pathogens. At the same time, forest landscape restoration has regained global attention as an integral strategy for climate change mitigation. Owing to unpredictable future risks and the need for new forests that provide multiple ecosystem services, mixed-species forests have been advocated for this purpose. However, the successful establishment of mixed forests requires intrinsic knowledge of biodiversity's role for forest ecosystem functioning. In this respect, a better understanding of tree-tree interactions and how they contribute to observed positive tree species richness effects on key ecosystem functions is critical. Here, we review the current knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of tree-tree interactions and argue that positive net biodiversity effects at the community scale may emerge from the dominance of positive over negative interactions at the local neighbourhood scale. In a second step, we demonstrate how tree-tree interactions and the immediate tree neighbourhood's role can be systematically assessed in a tree diversity experiment. The expected results will improve predictions about the effects of tree interactions on ecosystem functioning based on general principles. We argue that this knowledge is urgently required to guide the design of tree species mixtures for the successful establishment of newly planted forests.

KW - BEF-China

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Biotic feedbacks

KW - Facilitation

KW - Forest structure

KW - Resource partitioning

KW - Tree diversity experiment

KW - Tree neighbourhood

KW - TreeDì

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102452172&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/8fa30dcc-2a9c-3041-b9e9-24945d6caba8/

U2 - 10.1016/j.baae.2021.02.003

DO - 10.1016/j.baae.2021.02.003

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85102452172

VL - 55

SP - 33

EP - 52

JO - Basic and Applied Ecology

JF - Basic and Applied Ecology

SN - 1439-1791

ER -