TY - JOUR
T1 - Evenness mediates the global relationship between forest productivity and richness
AU - Hordijk, Iris
AU - Maynard, Daniel S.
AU - Hart, Simon P.
AU - Lidong, Mo
AU - ter Steege, Hans
AU - Liang, Jingjing
AU - de-Miguel, Sergio
AU - Nabuurs, Gert-Jan
AU - Reich, Peter B.
AU - Abegg, Meinrad
AU - Adou Yao, C. Yves
AU - Alberti, Giorgio
AU - Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M.
AU - Alvarado, Braulio V.
AU - Esteban, Alvarez-Davila
AU - Alvarez-Loayza, Patricia
AU - Alves, Luciana F.
AU - Ammer, Christian
AU - Antón-Fernández, Clara
AU - Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro
AU - Arroyo, Luzmila
AU - Avitabile, Valerio
AU - Aymard C, Gerardo A.
AU - Baker, Timothy
AU - Bałazy, Radomir
AU - Banki, Olaf
AU - Barroso, Jorcely
AU - Bastian, Meredith L.
AU - Bastin, Jean-Francois
AU - Birigazzi, Luca
AU - Birnbaum, Philippe
AU - Bitariho, Robert
AU - Boeckx, Pascal
AU - Bongers, Frans
AU - Bouriaud, Olivier
AU - Brancalion, Pedro H. S.
AU - Brandl, Susanne
AU - Brienen, Roel
AU - Broadbent, Eben N.
AU - Bruelheide, Helge
AU - Bussotti, Filippo
AU - Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto
AU - César, Ricardo G.
AU - Cesljar, Goran
AU - Chazdon, Robin
AU - Chen, Han Y. H.
AU - Chisholm, Chelsea
AU - Cienciala, Emil
AU - Clark, Connie J.
AU - Pfautsch, Sebastian
AU - et al, null
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - 1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity– ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.
AB - 1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity– ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.
KW - evenness
KW - diversity
KW - species richness
KW - ecosystem function and services
KW - productivity
KW - global
KW - forests
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:70772
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85159045617&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
SN - 0022-0477
VL - 111
SP - 1308
EP - 1326
JO - Journal of Ecology
JF - Journal of Ecology
IS - 6
ER -