TY - JOUR

T1 - Plant traits alone are poor predictors of ecosystem properties and long-term ecosystem functioning

AU - van der Plas, Fons

AU - Schröder-Georgi, Thomas

AU - Weigelt, Alexandra

AU - Barry, Kathryn

AU - Meyer, Sebastian

AU - Alzate, Adriana

AU - Barnard, Romain L.

AU - Buchmann, Nina

AU - de Kroon, Hans

AU - Ebeling, Anne

AU - Eisenhauer, Nico

AU - Engels, Christof

AU - Fischer, Markus

AU - Gleixner, Gerd

AU - Hildebrandt, Anke

AU - Koller-France, Eva

AU - Leimer, Sophia

AU - Milcu, Alexandru

AU - Mommer, Liesje

AU - Niklaus, Pascal A.

AU - Oelmann, Yvonne

AU - Roscher, Christiane

AU - Scherber, Christoph

AU - Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael

AU - Scheu, Stefan

AU - Schmid, Bernhard

AU - Schulze, Ernst Detlef

AU - Temperton, Vicky

AU - Tscharntke, Teja

AU - Voigt, Winfried

AU - Weisser, Wolfgang

AU - Wilcke, Wolfgang

AU - Wirth, Christian

PY - 2020/12

Y1 - 2020/12

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - tree species-diversity

KW - litter decomposition

KW - phylogenetic diversity

KW - subtropical forest

KW - carbon storage

KW - land-use

KW - community composition

KW - aboveground biomass

KW - global metaanalysis

KW - taxonomic diversity

KW - biodiversity

KW - community ecology

KW - ecosystem ecology

KW - grassland ecology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092089670&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5167/uzh-199915

DO - 10.5167/uzh-199915

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 33020598

AN - SCOPUS:85092089670

VL - 4

SP - 1602

EP - 1611

JO - Nature Ecology & Evolution

JF - Nature Ecology & Evolution

SN - 2397-334X

IS - 12

ER -