Early subtropical forest growth is driven by community mean trait values and functional diversity rather than the abiotic environment

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Wenzel Kröber
  • Ying Li
  • Werner Härdtle
  • Keping Ma
  • Bernhard Schmid
  • Karsten Schmidt
  • Thomas Scholten
  • Gunnar Seidler
  • Goddert von Oheimb
  • Erik Welk
  • Christian Wirth
  • Helge Bruehlheide

While functional diversity (FD) has been shown to be positively related to a number of ecosystem functions including biomass production, it may have a much less pronounced effect than that of environmental factors or species-specific properties. Leaf and wood traits can be considered particularly relevant to tree growth, as they reflect a trade-off between resources invested into growth and persistence. Our study focussed on the degree to which early forest growth was driven by FD, the environment (11 variables characterizing abiotic habitat conditions), and community-weighted mean (CWM) values of species traits in the context of a large-scale tree diversity experiment (BEF-China). Growth rates of trees with respect to crown diameter were aggregated across 231 plots (hosting between one and 23 tree species) and related to environmental variables, FD, and CWM, the latter two of which were based on 41 plant functional traits. The effects of each of the three predictor groups were analyzed separately by mixed model optimization and jointly by variance partitioning. Numerous single traits predicted plot-level tree growth, both in the models based on CWMs and FD, but none of the environmental variables was able to predict tree growth. In the best models, environment and FD explained only 4 and 31% of variation in crown growth rates, respectively, while CWM trait values explained 42%. In total, the best models accounted for 51% of crown growth. The marginal role of the selected environmental variables was unexpected, given the high topographic heterogeneity and large size of the experiment, as was the significant impact of FD, demonstrating that positive diversity effects already occur during the early stages in tree plantations. The manuscript addresses an approach to the framework suggested by Díaz et al. (2007, PNAS) to disentangle the effect of environment, species identity and functional diversity in tree communities. We present a dataset with 231 plots varying in ecological characteristics, species and functional diversity. We used a set of 41 plant functional traits for 23 tree species. Our most striking result is that the ecological environment only explained 4% of plot mean values in crown increment, whereas community weighted mean values and functional diversities of trait combinations explained 42 and 31%, respectively, adding up to 51% explained variation in combination. We can conclude that functional diversity even 3 years after planting has a significant impact on productivity.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEcology and Evolution
Volume5
Issue number17
Pages (from-to)3541-3556
Number of pages16
ISSN2045-7758
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.09.2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

    Research areas

  • Ecosystems Research - BEF-China, Community-weighted mean traits, ecosystem fuctioning, plant functional traits, stomatal density, trees

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Vielfalt des Alterns - Differenz oder Integration?
  2. Host functional and phylogenetic composition rather than host diversity structure plant–herbivore networks
  3. Depression-specific Costs and their Factors based on SHI Routine data
  4. Comparison of Software Tools for Liquid Chromatography-High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry Data Processing in Nontarget Screening of Environmental Samples
  5. Is the market classification of risk always efficient?
  6. Meta-Image – a collaborative environment for the image discourse
  7. Introduction
  8. Making the matrix matter
  9. Guest Editorial
  10. Recurrence-based diagnostics of rotary systems
  11. Hybrid models for future event prediction
  12. What is a Digital Object?
  13. Comments on Hasenfeld and Gidron
  14. The Role of Public Participation in Managing Uncertainty in the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive
  15. Zapping-Fernbedienung
  16. A flexible global warming index for use in an integrated approach to climate change assessment
  17. The interaction of precipitation and deformation in a binary Mg-Ca alloy at elevated temperatures
  18. New Communications Technology in the Context of Interactive Sound Art
  19. A hysteresis hybrid extended kalman filter as an observer for sensorless valve control in camless internal combustion engines
  20. Conclusion
  21. Why Fun Matters: In Search of Emergent Playful Experiences
  22. Efficacy of trapping techniques (pitfall, ramp and arboreal traps) for capturing spiders
  23. OPERATIONALIZING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
  24. QSPR Using MOLGEN-QSPR
  25. Article 11 Formal Validity
  26. Understanding spam
  27. New methods for in vivo degradation testing of future stent materials