Long-term consequences difficult to predict
Relationship between plant traits and ecosystem functions

Date:
October 7, 2020
Source:
Universita"t Leipzig
Summary:
A research team has investigated the consequences of changes in
plant biodiversity for the functioning of ecosystems. The scientists
found that the relationships between plant traits and ecosystem
functions change from year to year. This makes predicting the
long-term consequences of biodiversity change extremely difficult.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A research team has investigated the consequences of changes in plant biodiversity for the functioning of ecosystems. The scientists found that
the relationships between plant traits and ecosystem functions change
from year to year. This makes predicting the long-term consequences of biodiversity change extremely difficult.


==========================================================================
"We found that -- over the longer term -- the links between plant
traits and ecosystem functions were indeed very weak, as we could only
explain about 12 per cent of the variance in ecosystem functioning,"
said the paper's lead author, Dr Fons van der Plas from the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University. Together with colleagues from the German
Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and other research institutions in Germany and abroad, he found different patterns than
in previous studies -- which had focused on short-term links between
plant traits and ecosystem functions. These had previously assumed much stronger links between plant traits and ecosystem functioning.

"The main difference between our studies and earlier ones was that we
carried out our work over a period of ten years, while most other studies
were based on data measured in just one year," said the biologist. The relationships between plant traits and ecosystem functions changed
from year to year: some species become locally extinct, while others
replace them.

Scientists often ask themselves how this change in biodiversity affects
the way ecosystems function, for example in terms of biomass production,
carbon sequestration and pollination. In predicting these consequences,
they rely on the traits in which plants differ. For example, some plant
species are pollinated by insects, and others by the wind. They hope that knowing which species will be more common in the future and what traits
these species have will enable them to make more precise predictions.

The research team led by van der Plas has now discovered, for example,
that plant biomass production was maximised in plant communities
dominated by species with thick roots in some years and by completely
different plant communities in others. In almost every year, a different
plant trait was found to have been important for maximising biomass
production. According to van der Plas, it is therefore extremely difficult
to predict exactly how changes in plant communities affect the functioning
of ecosystems over long periods of time.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Universita"t_Leipzig. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Fons van der Plas, Thomas Schro"der-Georgi, Alexandra Weigelt,
Kathryn
Barry, Sebastian Meyer, Adriana Alzate, Romain L. Barnard,
Nina Buchmann, Hans de Kroon, Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer,
Christof Engels, Markus Fischer, Gerd Gleixner, Anke Hildebrandt,
Eva Koller-France, Sophia Leimer, Alexandru Milcu, Liesje Mommer,
Pascal A. Niklaus, Yvonne Oelmann, Christiane Roscher, Christoph
Scherber, Michael Scherer- Lorenzen, Stefan Scheu, Bernhard Schmid,
Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Vicky Temperton, Teja Tscharntke, Winfried
Voigt, Wolfgang Weisser, Wolfgang Wilcke, Christian Wirth. Plant
traits alone are poor predictors of ecosystem properties and
long-term ecosystem functioning. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2020;
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-020-01316-9 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201007123049.htm

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