Gagic Vesna, Bartomeus Ignasi, Jonsson Tomas, Taylor Astrid, Winqvist Camilla, Fischer Christina, Slade Eleanor M, Steffan-Dewenter Ingolf, Emmerson Mark, Potts Simon G, Tscharntke Teja, Weisser Wolfgang, Bommarco Riccardo
Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala 75007, Sweden.
Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala 75007, Sweden Departamento de Ecología Integrativa, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Sevilla 41092, Spain
Proc Biol Sci. 2015 Feb 22;282(1801):20142620. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2620.
Drastic biodiversity declines have raised concerns about the deterioration of ecosystem functions and have motivated much recent research on the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem functioning. A functional trait framework has been proposed to improve the mechanistic understanding of this relationship, but this has rarely been tested for organisms other than plants. We analysed eight datasets, including five animal groups, to examine how well a trait-based approach, compared with a more traditional taxonomic approach, predicts seven ecosystem functions below- and above-ground. Trait-based indices consistently provided greater explanatory power than species richness or abundance. The frequency distributions of single or multiple traits in the community were the best predictors of ecosystem functioning. This implies that the ecosystem functions we investigated were underpinned by the combination of trait identities (i.e. single-trait indices) and trait complementarity (i.e. multi-trait indices) in the communities. Our study provides new insights into the general mechanisms that link biodiversity to ecosystem functioning in natural animal communities and suggests that the observed responses were due to the identity and dominance patterns of the trait composition rather than the number or abundance of species per se.
生物多样性的急剧下降引发了人们对生态系统功能恶化的担忧，并推动了近期关于物种多样性与生态系统功能关系的大量研究。有人提出了一个功能性状框架，以增进对这种关系的机理理解，但除植物外，这一框架很少在其他生物中得到验证。我们分析了八个数据集，包括五个动物类群，以检验基于性状的方法与更传统的分类学方法相比，在预测地下和地上七种生态系统功能方面的效果如何。基于性状的指数始终比物种丰富度或多度具有更强的解释力。群落中单一或多个性状的频率分布是生态系统功能的最佳预测指标。这意味着我们所研究的生态系统功能是由群落中性状特征（即单性状指数）和性状互补性（即多性状指数）的组合所支撑的。我们的研究为将生物多样性与自然动物群落中的生态系统功能联系起来的一般机制提供了新的见解，并表明观察到的响应是由于性状组成的特征和优势模式，而非物种本身的数量或多度。
