Managing taxonomic and functional diversity is the key to sustain aboveground biomass and soil microbial diversity: A synthesis from long-term forest restoration of southern China
Exploring the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship is one of the central goals of ecological research. Restoration is essential for supporting key ecosystem functions such as aboveground biomass production and managing soil microbial diversity. However, the relative importance of functional versus taxonomic diversity in explaining aboveground biomass and soil microbial diversity during restoration is poorly understood. Here, we used a trait-based approach to test for the importance of multiple plant diversity attributes in regulating aboveground biomass and soil microbial diversity in four 30- years-old restored subtropical forests in southern China. High-throughput Illumina sequencing was applied for detecting fungal and bacterial diversity. We show that both taxonomic and functional diversities are significant and positive regulators of aboveground biomass; however, functional diversity (FD) was more important than taxonomic diversity (TD) in controlling aboveground biomass. FD had the strongest direct effect on aboveground biomass compared with TD, soil properties, and community weighted mean (CWM) traits. Our results further indicate that leaf and root morphological traits and traits related to the nutrient content in plant tissues showed acquisitive resource use strategy which influenced aboveground biomass. In contrast to aboveground biomass, taxonomic diversity explained more of the soil microbial diversity than the FD and soil properties. Prediction of fungal richness was better than that of bacterial richness. In addition, root traits explained more variation of soil microbes than the leaf traits. Our results suggest that both TD and FD play a role in shaping aboveground biomass and soil microbial diversity; but FD is more important in supporting aboveground biomass while TD for belowground microbial diversity. These results imply that enhancing TD and FD is important to restoring and managing degraded forest landscapes. Key words: Biodiversity-Ecosystem functions; soil microbial diversity, taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, forest restoration ID: 3486373
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| Format: | Document biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
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FAO ;
2022
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| Online Access: | https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/CC4495EN http://www.fao.org/3/cc4495en/cc4495en.pdf |
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