Plant species richness and ecosystem multifunctionality in global drylands

By Fernando T. Maestre, Jose Luis Quero, Nicholas Gotelli, A. Escudero, V. Ochoa, M. Delgado‐Baquerizo, M. García-Gómez, M. Bowker, S. Soliveres, C. Escolar and 43 more. Science, 2012

1,514 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Global Ecosystem Analysis The relationship between species richness and the functional properties of their ecosystems has often been studied at small scales in experimental plots. Maestre et al. (p. 214; see the Perspective by Midgley) performed field measurements at 224 dryland sites from six continents and assessed 14 ecosystem functions related to carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling. Positive relationships were observed between perennial plant species richness and ecosystem functionality. The relative importance of biodiversity was found to be as large as, or larger than, many key abiotic variables. Thus, preservation of plant biodiversity is important to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth's land surface and support over 38% of the human population. Plant species richness is positively related to ecosystem multifunctionality in drylands at a global scale. Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant species richness and abiotic factors to multifunctionality in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth’s land surface and support over 38% of the human population. Multifunctionality was positively and significantly related to species richness. The best-fitting models accounted for over 55% of the variation in multifunctionality and always included species richness as a predictor variable. Our results suggest that the preservation of plant biodiversity is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bc7e28a1f4cd975f4a4d8f62fb1fbc79033e80bc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

In Soil Science

Citations in the corpus

Soil microbiomes with distinct assemblies through vertical soil profiles drive the cycling of multiple nutrients in reforested ecosystems (2018, methodology): “We used this index to quantify soil multi-nutrient cycling because (1) it is a straightforward and interpretable measure of a community’s ability to sustain multiple functions at once and (2) we intended to explore the microbial contributions to service-based outcomes [29, 35, 36].”
Above‐ and below‐ground biodiversity jointly regulate temperate forest multifunctionality along a local‐scale environmental gradient (2020, methodology): “For the averaging approach, we calculated z-scores (standardized deviates) for each forest function and averaged them as described by Maestre et al. (2012).”
Response diversity determines the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change (2013, background): “…the notion of ‘low multifunctional redundancy’, which suggests that the number of species that promote ecosystem functioning increases with the number of functional contexts considered (Hector & Bagchi, 2007; Zavaleta et al., 2010; Isbell et al., 2011; Lohbeck et al., 2012; Maestre et al., 2012).”
The effect of microbial inoculant origin on the rhizosphere bacterial community composition and plant growth-promotion (2020, methodology): “Plant trait data were then combined into a one quantitative index reflective of mean plant growth-promotion function as described previously (Bradford et al. 2014; Delgado-Baquerizo et al. 2016; Maestre et al. 2012).”
Diversity increases carbon storage and tree productivity in Spanish forests (2014, methodology): “Most studies of BEF relationships have used species richness as a measure of 57 diversity (e.g. Maestre et al., 2012).”
Putting meaning back into “sustainable intensification” (2014, positive): “Other aspects of intensification, including soil compaction, overuse of groundwater, or increasing application of broad-spectrum pesticides, could also degrade the multiple services and long-term ecological sustainability of low-intensity farming systems (Hector and Bagchi 2007; Maestre et al. 2012)”
Do grazing intensity and herbivore type affect soil health? Insights from a semi‐arid productivity gradient (2017, background): “Although grazing had the least effect under high productivity, increases in aridity are predicted to reduce the productivity of drylands globally by the end of the 21st century (Maestre et al. 2012; Dai 2013; Delgado-Baquerizo et al. 2013), thus increasing their vulnerability to livestock effects.”