CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
Department of Forest Resources Management, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
Glob Chang Biol. 2021 Jun;27(12):2883-2894. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15606. Epub 2021 Mar 30.
Biodiversity plays a fundamental role in provisioning and regulating forest ecosystem functions and services. Above-ground (plants) and below-ground (soil microbes) biodiversity could have asynchronous change paces to human-driven land-use impacts. Yet, we know very little how they affect the provision of multiple forest functions related to carbon accumulation, water retention capacity and nutrient cycling simultaneously (i.e. ecosystem multifunctionality; EMF). We used a dataset of 22,000 temperate forest trees from 260 plots within 11 permanent forest sites in Northeastern China, which are recovering from three post-logging disturbances. We assessed the direct and mediating effects of multiple attributes of plant biodiversity (taxonomic, phylogenetic, functional and stand structure) and soil biodiversity (bacteria and fungi) on EMF under the three disturbance levels. We found the highest EMF in highly disturbed rather than undisturbed mature forests. Plant taxonomic, phylogenetic, functional and stand structural diversity had both positive and negative effects on EMF, depending on how the EMF index was quantified, whereas soil microbial diversity exhibited a consistent positive impact. Biodiversity indices explained on average 45% (26%-58%) of the variation in EMF, whereas climate and disturbance together explained on average 7% (0.4%-15%). Our result highlighted that the tremendous effect of biodiversity on EMF, largely overpassing those of both climate and disturbance. While above- (β = 0.02-0.19) and below-ground (β = 0.16-0.26) biodiversity had direct positive effects on EMF, their opposite mediating effects (β = -0.22 vs. β = 0.35 respectively) played as divergent pathways to human disturbance impacts on EMF. Our study sheds light on the need for integrative frameworks simultaneously considering above- and below-ground attributes to grasp the global picture of biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning and services. Suitable management interventions could maintain both plant and soil microbial biodiversity, and thus guarantee a long-term functioning and provisioning of ecosystem services in an increasing disturbance frequency world.
生物多样性在为森林生态系统功能和服务提供物质基础和调节方面发挥着基础性作用。地上（植物）和地下（土壤微生物）生物多样性可能与人类驱动的土地利用影响的变化速度不同步。然而，我们对它们如何同时影响与碳积累、保水能力和养分循环相关的多种森林功能（即生态系统多功能性；EMF）知之甚少。我们使用了来自中国东北 11 个永久森林站点的 260 个样地中 22000 棵温带森林树木的数据集，这些样地正在从三次伐木干扰中恢复。我们评估了植物生物多样性（分类学、系统发育、功能和林分结构）和土壤生物多样性（细菌和真菌）的多个属性对三种干扰水平下 EMF 的直接和中介效应。我们发现，在高度干扰而不是未干扰的成熟森林中，EMF 最高。植物分类学、系统发育、功能和林分结构多样性对 EMF 的影响既有正有负，具体取决于如何量化 EMF 指数，而土壤微生物多样性则表现出一致的正影响。生物多样性指数平均解释了 EMF 变异的 45%（26%-58%），而气候和干扰共同解释了 EMF 变异的平均 7%（0.4%-15%）。我们的研究结果强调了生物多样性对 EMF 的巨大影响，这在很大程度上超过了气候和干扰的影响。地上（β=0.02-0.19）和地下（β=0.16-0.26）生物多样性对 EMF 有直接的正向影响，而它们相反的中介效应（β=-0.22 与 β=0.35）则对人类干扰对 EMF 的影响起到了不同的作用。我们的研究结果强调了需要综合考虑地上和地下属性的综合框架，以掌握生物多样性对生态系统功能和服务的全球影响。合适的管理干预措施可以维持植物和土壤微生物的生物多样性，从而保证在干扰频率不断增加的世界中生态系统服务的长期功能和提供。
