Forest Ecology, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zürich, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
Ecol Lett. 2011 Dec;14(12):1211-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01691.x. Epub 2011 Sep 29.
Understanding the link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) is pivotal in the context of global biodiversity loss. Yet, long-term effects have been explored only weakly, especially for forests, and no clear evidence has been found regarding the underlying mechanisms. We explore the long-term relationship between diversity and productivity using a forest succession model. Extensive simulations show that tree species richness promotes productivity in European temperate forests across a large climatic gradient, mostly through strong complementarity between species. We show that this biodiversity effect emerges because increasing species richness promotes higher diversity in shade tolerance and growth ability, which results in forests responding faster to small-scale mortality events. Our study generalises results from short-term experiments in grasslands to forest ecosystems and demonstrates that competition for light alone induces a positive effect of biodiversity on productivity, thus providing a new angle for explaining BEF relationships.
理解生物多样性和生态系统功能（BEF）之间的联系在全球生物多样性丧失的背景下至关重要。然而，长期效应的研究还很薄弱，特别是对于森林，而且对于潜在机制也没有明确的证据。我们使用森林演替模型来探索多样性和生产力之间的长期关系。广泛的模拟表明，在较大的气候梯度范围内，树种丰富度促进了欧洲温带森林的生产力，这主要是通过物种之间的强烈互补性实现的。我们表明，这种生物多样性效应的出现是因为物种丰富度的增加促进了遮荫耐受性和生长能力的多样性提高，从而导致森林对小规模死亡率事件的反应更快。我们的研究将草原短期实验的结果推广到森林生态系统，并证明仅对光的竞争就会使生物多样性对生产力产生积极影响，从而为解释 BEF 关系提供了一个新的角度。
