Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, calle 28A # 5-09, Bogotá DC, Colombia.
Science. 2018 Oct 5;362(6410):80-83. doi: 10.1126/science.aat6405.
Biodiversity experiments have shown that species loss reduces ecosystem functioning in grassland. To test whether this result can be extrapolated to forests, the main contributors to terrestrial primary productivity, requires large-scale experiments. We manipulated tree species richness by planting more than 150,000 trees in plots with 1 to 16 species. Simulating multiple extinction scenarios, we found that richness strongly increased stand-level productivity. After 8 years, 16-species mixtures had accumulated over twice the amount of carbon found in average monocultures and similar amounts as those of two commercial monocultures. Species richness effects were strongly associated with functional and phylogenetic diversity. A shrub addition treatment reduced tree productivity, but this reduction was smaller at high shrub species richness. Our results encourage multispecies afforestation strategies to restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change.
生物多样性实验表明，物种丧失会降低草原的生态系统功能。为了检验这一结果是否可以推广到森林，而森林是陆地初级生产力的主要贡献者，这需要进行大规模的实验。我们通过在 1 到 16 个物种的样地中种植超过 15 万棵树来操纵树种丰富度。通过模拟多种灭绝情景，我们发现丰富度强烈地增加了林分水平的生产力。8 年后，16 种混合体积累的碳量是平均单一种群的两倍多，与两种商业单一种群的碳量相似。物种丰富度效应与功能和系统发育多样性密切相关。添加灌木处理会降低树木的生产力，但在高灌木物种丰富度下，这种降低幅度较小。我们的研究结果鼓励采用多物种造林策略来恢复生物多样性并缓解气候变化。
