Abstract

The biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship has received significant attention in recent decades. It has been widely demonstrated that plant diversity plays a crucial role in enhancing the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, few studies have tested the influence of plant species richness in mediating the impacts of climate on ecosystem functions at large spatial scales.To address this gap, we utilized data from field surveys across broad climatic gradients at the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China. Our goal was to examine the importance of plant species richness for the functioning of alpine grassland ecosystems, specifically productivity and soil carbon sequestration.Our results showed strong positive correlations between ecosystem functioning and growing season precipitation as well as species richness. In contrast, there was a negative correlation with growing season temperature. Notably, the positive effect of growing season precipitation on ecosystem functioning outweighed the negative effect of growing season temperature. The indirect effects of growing season precipitation and temperature on ecosystem functioning through changes in species richness were weak. Furthermore, the inclusion of climate factors in the model weakened the relationships between species richness and ecosystem functioning.Synthesis. Our findings demonstrate that climate factors are more important than species richness for the provisioning of ecosystem functions at large spatial scales. In summary, our study underscores the importance of considering climate factors alongside species richness when assessing ecosystem functioning across extensive geographical areas.

Keywords

alpine grassland; precipitation; productivity; soil nitrogen stock; soil organic carbon stock; spatial scales; species richness; temperature

Published in

Journal of Ecology
2023, Volume: 111, number: 11, pages: 2496-2506
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Kardol, Paul

  • Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14202

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/126578