Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients

Maowei Liang; Benjamin Baiser; Lauren M Hallett; Yann Hautier; Lin Jiang; Michel Loreau; Sydne Record; Eric R Sokol; Phoebe L Zarnetske; Shaopeng Wang

doi:10.1038/s41559-022-01868-y

Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients

Maowei Liang, Benjamin Baiser, Lauren M Hallett, Yann Hautier, Lin Jiang, Michel Loreau, Sydne Record, Eric R Sokol, Phoebe L Zarnetske, Shaopeng Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Biodiversity has widely been documented to enhance local community stability but whether such stabilizing effects of biodiversity extend to broader scales remains elusive. Here, we investigated the relationships between biodiversity and community stability in natural plant communities from quadrat (1 m 2) to plot (400 m 2) and regional (5-214 km 2) scales and across broad climatic conditions, using an extensive plant community dataset from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that plant diversity provided consistent stabilizing effects on total community abundance across three nested spatial scales and climatic gradients. The strength of the stabilizing effects of biodiversity increased modestly with spatial scale and decreased as precipitation seasonality increased. Our findings illustrate the generality of diversity-stability theory across scales and climatic gradients, which provides a robust framework for understanding ecosystem responses to biodiversity and climate changes.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1669-1675
Number of pages	7
Journal	Nature Ecology and Evolution
Volume	6
Issue number	11
Early online date	19 Sept 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01868-y
Publication status	Published - Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31988102 and 32122053). The NEON is a programme sponsored by the National Science Foundation and operated under cooperative agreement by Battelle. This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the NEON Program. Funding was also provided by the National Science Foundation (no. 1926567 to P.L.Z.; no. 1926568 to S.R.; no. 1926569 to B.B.). We thank the numerous scientists, ecologists and staff who managed the NEON observations and collected plant community data.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

Keywords

Climate Change
Ecosystem
Plants
Biodiversity

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1038/s41559-022-01868-y

s41559-022-01868-yFinal published version, 6.63 MBLicence: Taverne

Cite this

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title = "Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients",

abstract = "Biodiversity has widely been documented to enhance local community stability but whether such stabilizing effects of biodiversity extend to broader scales remains elusive. Here, we investigated the relationships between biodiversity and community stability in natural plant communities from quadrat (1 m 2) to plot (400 m 2) and regional (5-214 km 2) scales and across broad climatic conditions, using an extensive plant community dataset from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that plant diversity provided consistent stabilizing effects on total community abundance across three nested spatial scales and climatic gradients. The strength of the stabilizing effects of biodiversity increased modestly with spatial scale and decreased as precipitation seasonality increased. Our findings illustrate the generality of diversity-stability theory across scales and climatic gradients, which provides a robust framework for understanding ecosystem responses to biodiversity and climate changes. ",

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N2 - Biodiversity has widely been documented to enhance local community stability but whether such stabilizing effects of biodiversity extend to broader scales remains elusive. Here, we investigated the relationships between biodiversity and community stability in natural plant communities from quadrat (1 m 2) to plot (400 m 2) and regional (5-214 km 2) scales and across broad climatic conditions, using an extensive plant community dataset from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that plant diversity provided consistent stabilizing effects on total community abundance across three nested spatial scales and climatic gradients. The strength of the stabilizing effects of biodiversity increased modestly with spatial scale and decreased as precipitation seasonality increased. Our findings illustrate the generality of diversity-stability theory across scales and climatic gradients, which provides a robust framework for understanding ecosystem responses to biodiversity and climate changes.

AB - Biodiversity has widely been documented to enhance local community stability but whether such stabilizing effects of biodiversity extend to broader scales remains elusive. Here, we investigated the relationships between biodiversity and community stability in natural plant communities from quadrat (1 m 2) to plot (400 m 2) and regional (5-214 km 2) scales and across broad climatic conditions, using an extensive plant community dataset from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that plant diversity provided consistent stabilizing effects on total community abundance across three nested spatial scales and climatic gradients. The strength of the stabilizing effects of biodiversity increased modestly with spatial scale and decreased as precipitation seasonality increased. Our findings illustrate the generality of diversity-stability theory across scales and climatic gradients, which provides a robust framework for understanding ecosystem responses to biodiversity and climate changes.

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Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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