Fan Chunyu, Tan Lingzhao, Zhang Chunyu, Zhao Xiuhai, Gao Lushuang, von Gadow Klaus
Research Center of Forest Management Engineering of State Forestry and Grassland Administration Beijing Forestry University Beijing China.
Faculty of Forestry and Forest Ecology Georg-August-University Göttingen Göttingen Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2020 Jul 8;10(15):8225-8234. doi: 10.1002/ece3.6530. eCollection 2020 Aug.
The relationship between biodiversity and productivity has stimulated an increasing body of research over the past decades, and this topic still occupies a central place in ecology. While most studies have focused on biomass production in quadrats or plots, few have investigated the scale-dependent relationship from an individual plant perspective. We present an analysis of the effects of biodiversity (species diversity and functional diversity) on individual tree growth with a data set of 16,060 growth records from a 30-ha temperate forest plot using spatially explicit individual tree-based methods. A significant relationship between species diversity and tree growth was found at the individual tree level in our study. The magnitude and direction of biodiversity effects varies with the spatial scale. We found positive effects of species diversity on tree growth at scales exceeding 9 m. Individual tree growth rates increased when there was a greater diversity of species in the neighborhood of the focal tree, which provides evidence of a niche complementarity effect. At small scales (3-5 m), species diversity had negative effects on tree growth, suggesting that competition is more prevalent than complementarity or facilitation in these close neighborhoods. The results also revealed many confounding factors which influence tree growth, such as elevation and available sun light. We conclude that the use of individual tree-based methods may lead to a better understanding of the biodiversity-productivity relationship in forest communities.
在过去几十年里，生物多样性与生产力之间的关系激发了越来越多的研究，并且这个主题在生态学中仍然占据核心地位。虽然大多数研究集中在样方或地块中的生物量生产，但很少有研究从单株植物的角度调查尺度依赖关系。我们使用基于空间明确的单株树木方法，对一个30公顷温带森林样地的16060条生长记录数据集进行分析，以研究生物多样性（物种多样性和功能多样性）对单株树木生长的影响。在我们的研究中，在单株树木水平上发现了物种多样性与树木生长之间的显著关系。生物多样性效应的大小和方向随空间尺度而变化。我们发现在超过9米的尺度上，物种多样性对树木生长有积极影响。当焦点树木附近的物种多样性更高时，单株树木的生长速率会增加，这为生态位互补效应提供了证据。在小尺度（3 - 5米）下，物种多样性对树木生长有负面影响，这表明在这些近距离区域竞争比互补或促进更为普遍。结果还揭示了许多影响树木生长的混杂因素，如海拔和可获得的阳光。我们得出结论，使用基于单株树木的方法可能会更好地理解森林群落中的生物多样性 - 生产力关系。
