Tree phylogenetic diversity structures multitrophic communities

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Michael Staab
  • Xiaojuan Liu
  • Thorsten Assmann
  • Helge Bruelheide
  • François Buscot
  • Walter Durka
  • Alexandra Erfmeier
  • Alexandra Maria Klein
  • Keping Ma
  • Stefan Michalski
  • Tesfaye Wubet
  • Bernhard Schmid
  • Andreas Schuldt

Plant diversity begets diversity at other trophic levels. While species richness is the most commonly used measure for plant diversity, the number of evolutionary lineages (i.e. phylogenetic diversity) could theoretically have a stronger influence on the community structure of co-occurring organisms. However, this prediction has only rarely been tested in complex real-world ecosystems. Using a comprehensive multitrophic dataset of arthropods and fungi from a species-rich subtropical forest, we tested whether tree species richness or tree phylogenetic diversity relates to the diversity and composition of organisms. We show that tree phylogenetic diversity but not tree species richness determines arthropod and fungi community composition across trophic levels and increases the diversity of predatory arthropods but decreases herbivorous arthropod diversity. The effect of tree phylogenetic diversity was not mediated by changed abundances of associated organisms, indicating that evolutionarily more diverse plant communities increase niche opportunities (resource diversity) but not necessarily niche amplitudes (resource amount). Our findings suggest that plant evolutionary relatedness structures multitrophic communities in the studied species-rich forests and possibly other ecosystems at large. As global change non-randomly threatens phylogenetically distinct plant species, far-reaching consequences on associated communities are expected. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Original languageEnglish
JournalFunctional Ecology
Volume35
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)521-534
Number of pages14
ISSN0269-8463
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.02.2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Functional Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society

    Research areas

  • arthropods, BEF-China, biodiversity–ecosystem functioning, cross-taxon congruence, forest, fungi, niche, trophic interactions
  • Ecosystems Research

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