Fernández-Martínez Marcos
Research Group PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, 2610, Belgium.
CREAF, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Catalonia, E08193, Spain.
New Phytol. 2022 Apr;234(1):35-42. doi: 10.1111/nph.17864. Epub 2021 Dec 4.
The elemental composition of plants (the elementome) is a reliable indicator of their functional traits and the ecological strategies that they follow, and thus represents a good predictor of how ecosystems work. Biodiversity and, especially, functional diversity are also widely recognized as important drivers of ecosystem functioning, mainly because of niche partitioning amongst different species. Here, I review evidence indicating that plant elementomes relate to their ecological niches and how plant elemental concentrations may shift in response to abiotic and biotic drivers. I propose the use of ecosystem elementome diversity as a universal metric to compare ecosystems and investigate diversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. Future research using this promising novel approach will bring together elementomes, diversity, and ecosystem functioning.
植物的元素组成（元素组）是其功能性状以及所遵循的生态策略的可靠指标，因此是生态系统如何运作的良好预测指标。生物多样性，尤其是功能多样性，也被广泛认为是生态系统功能的重要驱动因素，主要是因为不同物种之间存在生态位分化。在这里，我回顾了相关证据，这些证据表明植物元素组与其生态位相关，以及植物元素浓度如何响应非生物和生物驱动因素而发生变化。我提议将生态系统元素组多样性用作一种通用指标，以比较生态系统并研究多样性与生态系统功能之间的关系。使用这种有前景的新方法的未来研究将把元素组、多样性和生态系统功能结合起来。
