Evenness mediates the global relationship between forest productivity and richness

• Autores: Hordijk, Iris; Maynard, Daniel S.; Hart, Simon P.; Lidong, Mo; Steege, Hans ter; Liang, Jingjing; de Miguel, Sergio; Nabuurs, Gert-Jan; Reich, Peter B.; Abegg, Meinrad; Peri, Pablo Luis; Crowther, Thomas W.
• Año de publicación: 2023
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Fuente: Journal of Ecology 111 (6) : 1308-1326. (June 2023)
• Materia: Forest Biodiversity; Species Diversity; Ecosystem Services; Productivity; Species Richness; Biodiversidad Forestal; Diversidad de Especies; Servicios de los Ecosistemas; Productividad; Riqueza de Especies; Ecosystem Function and Service; Función y Servicio del Ecosistema
• Institución: Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria

1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.
EEA Santa Cruz
Fil: Hordijk, Iris. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Institute of Integrative Biology; Suiza
Fil: Maynard, Daniel S. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Institute of Integrative Biology; Suiza
Fil: Hart, Simon P. University of Queensland. School of Biological Sciences; Australia.
Fil: Lidong, Mo. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Institute of Integrative Biology; Suiza
Fil: Steege, Hans ter. Naturalis Biodiversity Centre; Países Bajos
Fil: Steege, Hans ter. University Amsterdam. Systems Ecology, Free; Países Bajos
Fil: Liang, Jingjing. Purdue University. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources; Estados Unidos
Fil: de Miguel, Sergio. University of Lleida. Department of Crop and Forest Sciences; España
Fil: de Miguel, Sergio. CTFC—AGROTECNIO—CERCA. Joint Research Unit.; España
Fil: Nabuurs, Gert-Jan. Wageningen University and Research; Países Bajos
Fil: Reich, Peter B. University of Minnesota. Department of Forest Resources; Estados Unidos
Fil: Reich, Peter B. Western Sydney University. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment; Australia.
Fil: Abegg, Meinrad. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest. Snow and Landscape Research: Suiza
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina.
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina.
Fil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA); Argentina.
Fil: Crowther, Thomas W. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Institute of Integrative Biology; Suiza