State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085, Beijing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China.
Commun Biol. 2022 Jun 1;5(1):527. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-03471-0.
Understanding the stability of ecosystem multifunctionality is imperative for maintaining ecosystem health and sustainability under augmented global change. However it remains unknown whether and how biological communities mediate multifunctional stability in response to biodiversity loss and disturbances. Here, we conducted a 3-year experiment by exposing 270 plant communities of four plant richness levels, i.e., 1, 2, 4, or 8 species, to drought and exotic plant invasion disturbances. Then, the direct effects of plant richness, drought and invasion, and their indirect effects mediated by the stability of plant, litter-faunal, and soil-faunal communities on multifunctional stability were disentangled. We found that plant richness increased, while drought and invasion decreased ecosystem multifunctional stability, which were mediated by plant or faunal community stability. By incorporating the stability of communities into the complex ecological mechanisms, the completeness and goodness of ecological models for explaining and maintaining the stability of ecosystem multifunctionality will be improved.
了解生态系统多功能性的稳定性对于在增强的全球变化下维持生态系统健康和可持续性至关重要。然而，目前尚不清楚生物群落是否以及如何响应生物多样性丧失和干扰来调节多功能稳定性。在这里，我们通过将 270 个植物群落暴露于干旱和外来植物入侵干扰下，进行了为期 3 年的实验，这些植物群落的植物丰富度水平分别为 1、2、4 或 8 种。然后，我们解析了植物丰富度、干旱和入侵的直接效应，以及它们通过植物、凋落物-动物和土壤-动物群落稳定性的间接效应，对多功能稳定性的影响。我们发现，植物丰富度增加，而干旱和入侵则降低了生态系统多功能性的稳定性，这是由植物或动物群落稳定性介导的。通过将群落稳定性纳入复杂的生态机制中，可以提高生态模型解释和维持生态系统多功能性稳定性的完整性和有效性。
