Forest productivity increases with evenness, species richness and trait variation: A global meta-analysis

Journal of Ecology

Volumn 100, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 742-749

  Zhang, Yu ^a   Chen, Han Y H ^a   Reich, Peter B ^b,c  

^a LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^c WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Biomes; Boosted regression trees; Net diversity effect; Plant development and life history traits; Productivity; Species evenness; Stand origins

Indexed keywords

BIOME; COMMUNITY STRUCTURE; ECOLOGICAL MODELING; FACILITATION; FOREST ECOSYSTEM; FORESTRY PRODUCTION; GRASSLAND; HERB; HETEROGENEITY; LIFE HISTORY TRAIT; META-ANALYSIS; MONOCULTURE; NICHE; POLYCULTURE; SHADE TOLERANCE; SPECIES EVENNESS; SPECIES RICHNESS;

EID: 84859726438     PISSN: 00220477     EISSN: 13652745     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01944.x     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Adler, P.B., Seabloom, E.W., Borer, E.T., Hillebrand, H., Hautier, Y., Hector, A. et al. (2011) Productivity is a poor predictor of plant species richness. Science, 333, 1750-1753.
2. Amoroso, M.M. & Turnblom, E.C. (2006) Comparing productivity of pure and mixed Douglas-fir and western hemlock plantations in the Pacific Northwest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 36, 1484-1496.
3. Baiser, B. & Lockwood, J.L. (2011) The relationship between functional and taxonomic homogenization. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20, 134-144.
4. Bock, C.E., Jones, Z.F. & Bock, J.H. (2007) Relationships between species richness, evenness, and abundance in a southwestern Savanna. Ecology, 88, 1322-1327.
5. Brassard, B.W., Chen, H.Y.H., Bergeron, Y. & Paré, D. (2011) Differences in fine root productivity between mixed- and single-species stands. Functional Ecology, 25, 238-246.
6. Cadotte, M.W., Cavender-Bares, J., Tilman, D. & Oakley, T.H. (2009) Using phylogenetic, functional and trait diversity to understand patterns of plant community productivity. PLoS One, 4, e5695.
7. Cardinale, B.J. (2011) Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning. Nature, 472, 86-89.
8. Cardinale, B.J., Wright, J.P., Cadotte, M.W., Carroll, I.T., Hector, A., Srivastava, D.S. et al. (2007) Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 18123-18128.
9. Cavard, X., Bergeron, Y., Chen, H.Y.H. & Pare, D. (2010) Mixed-species effect on tree aboveground carbon pools in the east-central boreal forests. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 40, 37-47.
10. Cavard, X., Bergeron, Y., Chen, H.Y.H., Paré, D., Laganière, J. & Brassard, B. (2011) Competition and facilitation between tree species change with stand development. Oikos, 120, 1683-1695.
11. Chen, H.Y.H. & Klinka, K. (2003) Aboveground productivity of western hemlock and western redcedar mixed-species stands in southern coastal British Columbia. Forest Ecology and Management, 184, 55-64.
12. Chen, H.Y.H. & Popadiouk, R.V. (2002) Dynamics of North American boreal mixedwoods. Environmental Reviews, 10, 137.
13. Chen, H.Y.H. & Taylor, A.R. (2011) A test of ecological succession hypotheses using 55-year time-series data for 361 boreal forest stands. Global Ecology and Biogeography, DOI:
14. Connell, J.H. (1971) On the role of natural enemies in preventing competitive exclusion in some marine animals and in rain forest trees. Dynamics of Numbers in Populations (eds P.J. den Boer & G.R. Gradwell ), pp. 298-312. PUDOC, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
15. Coomes, D.A., Kunstler, G., Canham, C.D. & Wright, E. (2009) A greater range of shade-tolerance niches in nutrient-rich forests: an explanation for positive richness-productivity relationships? Journal of Ecology, 97, 705-717.
16. Darwin, C. (1859) The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of on the Origin of Species. Belknap, Cambridge, MA.
17. De'ath, G. (2007) Boosted trees for ecological modeling and prediction. Ecology, 88, 243-251.
18. Duffy, J.E. (2009) Why biodiversity is important to the functioning of real-world ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7, 437-444.
19. Edgar, C.B. & Burk, T.E. (2001) Productivity of aspen forests in northeastern Minnesota, USA, as related to stand composition and canopy structure. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 31, 1019-1029.
20. Elith, J., Leathwick, J.R. & Hastie, T. (2008) A working guide to boosted regression trees. Journal of Animal Ecology, 77, 802-813.
21. Fargione, J., Tilman, D., Dybzinski, R., Lambers, J.H.R., Clark, C., Harpole, W.S. et al. (2007) From selection to complementarity: shifts in the causes of biodiversity-productivity relationships in a long-term biodiversity experiment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 274, 871-876.
22. Franklin, J.F., Spies, T.A., Van Pelt, R., Carey, A.B., Thornburgh, D.A., Berg, D.R. et al. (2002) Disturbances and structural development of natural forest ecosystems with silvicultural implications, using Douglas-fir forests as an example. Forest Ecology and Management, 155, 399-423.
23. Friedman, J.H. & Meulman, J.J. (2003) Multiple additive regression trees with application in epidemiology. Statistics in Medicine, 22, 1365-1381.
24. Garber, S.M. & Maguire, D.A. (2004) Stand productivity and development in two mixed-species spacing trials in the central Oregon cascades. Forest Science, 50, 92-105.
25. Grace, J.B., Anderson, T.M., Smith, M.D., Seabloom, E., Andelman, S.J., Meche, G. et al. (2007) Does species diversity limit productivity in natural grassland communities? Ecology Letters, 10, 680-689.
26. Hart, S.A. & Chen, H.Y.H. (2008) Fire, logging, and overstory affect understory abundance, diversity, and composition in boreal forest. Ecological Monographs, 78, 123-140.
27. Hector, A. & Hooper, R. (2002) Ecology - Darwin and the first ecological experiment. Science, 295, 639-640.
28. Hedges, L.V., Gurevitch, J. & Curtis, P.S. (1999) The meta-analysis of response ratios in experimental ecology. Ecology, 80, 1150-1156.
29. Hillebrand, H., Bennett, D.M. & Cadotte, M.W. (2008) Consequences of dominance: a review of evenness effects on local and regional ecosystem processes. Ecology, 89, 1510-1520.
30. Hillebrand, H. & Cardinale, B.J. (2010) A critique for meta-analyses and the productivity-diversity relationship. Ecology, 91, 2545-2549.
31. Hillebrand, H. & Matthiessen, B. (2009) Biodiversity in a complex world: consolidation and progress in functional biodiversity research. Ecology Letters, 12, 1405-1419.
32. Hooper, D.U., Chapin, F.S., Ewel, J.J., Hector, A., Inchausti, P., Lavorel, S. et al. (2005) Effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge. Ecological Monographs, 75, 3-35.
33. Isbell, F.I., Polley, H.W. & Wilsey, B.J. (2009) Biodiversity, productivity and the temporal stability of productivity: patterns and processes. Ecology Letters, 12, 443-451.
34. Isbell, F., Calcagno, V., Hector, A., Connolly, J., Harpole, W.S., Reich, P.B. et al. (2011) High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services. Nature, 477, 199-202.
35. Janzen, D.H. (1970) Herbivores and the number of tree species in tropical forests. American Naturalist, 104, 501-528.
36. Kirwan, L., Lüscher, A., Sebastià, M.T., Finn, J.A., Collins, R.P., Porqueddu, C. et al. (2007) Evenness drives consistent diversity effects in intensive grassland systems across 28 European sites. Journal of Ecology, 95, 530-539.
37. Lepš, J. (2004) What do the biodiversity experiments tell us about consequences of plant species loss in the real world? Basic and Applied Ecology, 5, 529-534.
38. Leuschner, C., Jungkunst, H.F. & Fleck, S. (2009) Functional role of forest diversity: Pros and cons of synthetic stands and across-site comparisons in established forests. Basic and Applied Ecology, 10, 1-9.
39. Loreau, M. & Hector, A. (2001) Partitioning selection and complementarity in biodiversity experiments. Nature, 412, 72-76.
40. Loreau, M., Naeem, S., Inchausti, P., Bengtsson, J., Grime, J.P., Hector, A. et al. (2001) Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: current knowledge and future challenges. Science, 294, 804-808.
41. MacPherson, D.M., Lieffers, V.J. & Blenis, P.V. (2001) Productivity of aspen stands with and without a spruce understory in Alberta's boreal mixedwood forests. Forestry Chronicle, 77, 351-356.
42. Maestre, F.T., Callaway, R.M., Valladares, F. & Lortie, C.J. (2009) Refining the stress-gradient hypothesis for competition and facilitation in plant communities. Journal of Ecology, 97, 199-205.
43. Marquard, E., Weigelt, A., Temperton, V.M., Roscher, C., Schumacher, J., Buchmann, N. et al. (2009) Plant species richness and functional composition drive overyielding in a six-year grassland experiment. Ecology, 90, 3290-3302.
44. Menge, D.N.L. & Hedin, L.O. (2009) Nitrogen fixation in different biogeochemical niches along a 120 000-year chronosequence in New Zealand. Ecology, 90, 2190-2201.
45. Naeem, S., Bunker, D.E., Hector, A., Loreau, M. & Perrings, C. (2009) Introduction: the ecological and social implications of changing biodiversity. Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective (eds S. Naeem, D.E. Bunker, A. Hector, M. Loreau & C. Perrings ), pp. 3-4. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
46. Pacala, S.W., Canham, C.D., Silander, J.A. & Kobe, R.K. (1994) Sapling growth as a function of resources in a north temperate forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 24, 2172-2183.
47. Paquette, A. & Messier, C. (2011) The effect of biodiversity on tree productivity: from temperate to boreal forests. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20, 170-180.
48. Pielou, E.C. (1969) An Introduction to Mathematical Ecology. Wiley-Interscience, Toronto.
49. Polley, H.W., Wilsey, B.J. & Derner, J.D. (2003) Do species evenness and plant density influence the magnitude of selection and complementarity effects in annual plant species mixtures? Ecology Letters, 6, 248-256.
50. Pretzsch, H. & Schutze, G. (2009) Transgressive overyielding in mixed compared with pure stands of Norway spruce and European beech in Central Europe: evidence on stand level and explanation on individual tree level. European Journal of Forest Research, 128, 183-204.
51. Reich, P.B., Wright, I.J., Cavender-Bares, J., Craine, J.M., Oleksyn, J., Westoby, M. et al. (2003) The evolution of plant functional variation: traits, spectra, and strategies. International Journal of Plant Sciences, 164, S143-S164.
52. Ridgeway, G. (2010) gbm: Generalized Boosted Regression Models: R Package Version 1.6-3.1. (accessed 25 December 2010).
53. Schnitzer, S.A., Klironomos, J.N., Hillerislambers, J., Kinkel, L.L., Reich, P.B., Xiao, K. et al. (2011) Soil microbes drive the classic plant diversity-productivity pattern. Ecology, 92, 296-303.
54. Silvertown, J. (2004) Plant coexistence and the niche. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 19, 605-611.
55. Stachowicz, J.J., Best, R.J., Bracken, M.E.S. & Graham, M.H. (2008) Complementarity in marine biodiversity manipulations: reconciling divergent evidence from field and mesocosm experiments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 18842-18847.
56. Statzner, B., Bonada, N. & Doledec, S. (2007) Conservation of taxonomic and biological trait diversity of European stream macroinvertebrate communities: a case for a collective public database. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16, 3609-3632.
57. Taylor, A.R. & Chen, H.Y.H. (2011) Multiple successional pathways of boreal forest stands in central Canada. Ecography, 34, 208-219.
58. Tilman, D. (1999) The ecological consequences of changes in biodiversity: a search for general principles. Ecology, 80, 1455-1474.
59. Tilman, D., Wedin, D. & Knops, J. (1996) Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems. Nature, 379, 718-720.
60. Turnbull, L.A. & Hector, A. (2010) Applied ecology: how to get even with pests. Nature, 466, 36-37.
61. Vila, M., Vayreda, J., Gracia, C. & Ibanez, J.J. (2003) Does tree diversity increase wood production in pine forests? Oecologia, 135, 299-303.
62. Wardle, D.A., Walker, L.R. & Bardgett, R.D. (2004) Ecosystem properties and forest decline in contrasting long-term chronosequences. Science, 305, 509-513.
63. Weis, J.J., Madrigal, D.S. & Cardinale, B.J. (2008) Effects of algal diversity on the production of biomass in homogeneous and heterogeneous nutrient environments: a microcosm experiment. PLoS One, 3, e2825.
64. Yachi, S. & Loreau, M. (2007) Does complementary resource use enhance ecosystem functioning? A model of light competition in plant communities. Ecology Letters, 10, 54-62.