Estimating the effects of functional diversity and composition on the spatial variability of ecosystem multifunctionality in a large temperate forest region

Functional diversity and composition have been shown to significantly influence the temporal variability of ecosystem functioning. However, their impact on the spatial variability of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality) is still unknown. Therefore, this study aims to explore how functional diversity and composition affect the spatial variability of ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF-SV) under different environmental conditions in a temperate forest region. Regional communities representing specific spatial scales were established by assembling different numbers of sample plots. The EMF-SV was represented by the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean value of ecosystem multifunctionality within each regional community. Linear mixed-effects models were used to evaluate the effects of functional diversity and composition on the EMF-SV at different spatial scales. Structural equation models were applied to explore the direct and indirect pathways of functional diversity and composition influencing the EMF-SV. Our results show that functional diversity and composition had significant effects on the EMF-SV, and these effects changed with spatial scales and environmental conditions. They affected the EMF-SV directly or indirectly through species asynchrony and population stability. Our results demonstrate the role of functional traits in regulating the EMF-SV across spatial scales and explore the main impact mechanisms. This will contribute to our understanding and protection of ecosystem multifunctionality in temperate forests.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Environmental Research Letters

• Publication date

  2025-10-20

• Fields of study

  Physics, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ae1521
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Unifying spatial scaling laws of biodiversity and ecosystem stability.

  2025influential reference
• Contrasting age-dependent leaf acclimation strategies drive vegetation greening across deciduous broadleaf forests in mid- to high latitudes

  2025cited by this paper
• Convergent Strategies for Leaf Traits in Tree Species From Divergent Habitats

  2025cited by this paper
• Widespread slow growth of acquisitive tree species

  2025cited by this paper
• Temporal asynchrony of plant and soil biota determines ecosystem multifunctional stability

  2024cited by this paper
• Updating the distribution of Nothofagus alessandrii: Impact of deforestation, fragmentation and connectivity

  2024cited by this paper
• Plant diversity and community age stabilize ecosystem multifunctionality

  2024cited by this paper
• Community diversity and composition affect ecosystem multifunctionality across environmental gradients in boreal and temperate forests

  2024cited by this paper
• Chronic anthropogenic disturbance mediates the biodiversity‐productivity relationship across stand ages in a large temperate forest region

  2024cited by this paper
• Latitudinal patterns of forest ecosystem stability across spatial scales as affected by biodiversity and environmental heterogeneity

  2023cited by this paper
• Global forest fragmentation change from 2000 to 2020

  2023cited by this paper
• Environmental filtering drives biodiversity–spatial stability relationships in a large temperate forest region

  2023influential reference
• Extension of the glmm.hp package to Zero-Inflated Generalized Linear Mixed Models and multiple regression

  2023cited by this paper
• Environmental heterogeneity modulates the effect of plant diversity on the spatial variability of grassland biomass

  2023influential reference
• Ecological integrity of tropical secondary forests: concepts and indicators

  2022cited by this paper
• Spatial asynchrony matters more than alpha stability in stabilizing ecosystem productivity in a large temperate forest region

  2022cited by this paper
• Biodiversity stabilizes plant communities through statistical-averaging effects rather than compensatory dynamics

  2022cited by this paper
• Functional trait effects on ecosystem stability: assembling the jigsaw puzzle.

  2021influential reference
• Unravelling biodiversity–productivity relationships across a large temperate forest region

  2021cited by this paper
• Functional traits influence biomass and productivity through multiple mechanisms in a temperate secondary forest

  2020cited by this paper
• Plant functional traits are correlated with species persistence in the herb layer of old-growth beech forests

  2020cited by this paper
• Latitudinal gradients and ecological drivers of β‐diversity vary across spatial scales in a temperate forest region

  2020cited by this paper
• Nitrogen deposition is the most important environmental driver of growth of pure, even-aged and managed European forests

  2020cited by this paper
• Global evidence of positive biodiversity effects on spatial ecosystem stability in natural grasslands

  2019cited by this paper
• Phylogenetic, functional, and taxonomic richness have both positive and negative effects on ecosystem multifunctionality

  2019cited by this paper
• Functional and phylogenetic diversity determine woody productivity in a temperate forest

  2018cited by this paper
• Soil fertility and species traits, but not diversity, drive productivity and biomass stocks in a Guyanese tropical rainforest

  2018cited by this paper
• Climate mediates the biodiversity–ecosystem stability relationship globally

  2018cited by this paper
• Multiple facets of biodiversity drive the diversity–stability relationship

  2018cited by this paper
• Temperature and aridity regulate spatial variability of soil multifunctionality in drylands across the globe.

  2018cited by this paper
• Functional trait diversity maximizes ecosystem multifunctionality

  2017cited by this paper
• An invariability-area relationship sheds new light on the spatial scaling of ecological stability

  2017influential reference
• Contrasting mass‐ratio vs. niche complementarity effects on litter C and N loss during decomposition along a regional climatic gradient

  2017cited by this paper
• Jack-of-all-trades effects drive biodiversity–ecosystem multifunctionality relationships in European forests

  2016cited by this paper
• Compensatory dynamics stabilize aggregate community properties in response to multiple types of perturbations.

  2016cited by this paper
• Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015: how are the world's forests changing?

  2015cited by this paper
• Environmental heterogeneity as a universal driver of species richness across taxa, biomes and spatial scales.

  2014cited by this paper
• Akaike Information Criterion

  2014cited by this paper
• Plant Functional Traits as Determinants of Population Stability

  2014cited by this paper
• Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4

  2014cited by this paper
• Trait-based tests of coexistence mechanisms.

  2013cited by this paper
• Investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality: challenges and solutions

  2013influential reference
• lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling

  2012cited by this paper
• Understanding diversity–stability relationships: towards a unified model of portfolio effects

  2012cited by this paper
• The effect of biodiversity on tree productivity: from temperate to boreal forests

  2011cited by this paper
• Forest Management in Northeast China: History, Problems, and Challenges

  2011cited by this paper
• A distance-based framework for measuring functional diversity from multiple traits.

  2010cited by this paper
• Decoupled leaf and stem economics in rain forest trees.

  2010cited by this paper
• New multidimensional functional diversity indices for a multifaceted framework in functional ecology.

  2008influential reference
• Species Synchrony and Its Drivers: Neutral and Nonneutral Community Dynamics in Fluctuating Environments

  2008cited by this paper
• Scale effects and human impact on the elevational species richness gradients

  2008cited by this paper
• Does biodiversity increase spatial stability in plant community biomass?

  2008influential reference
• Facilitation in plant communities: the past, the present, and the future

  2007cited by this paper
• Assessing functional diversity in the field - methodology matters!

  2007cited by this paper
• Biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality

  2007cited by this paper
• Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment

  2006cited by this paper
• Variation partitioning of species data matrices: estimation and comparison of fractions.

  2006cited by this paper
• Changes in Forest Biomass Carbon Storage in China Between 1949 and 1998

  2001cited by this paper
• Diversity‐Stability Relationships: Statistical Inevitability or Ecological Consequence?

  1998cited by this paper
• The Statistical Inevitability of Stability‐Diversity Relationships in Community Ecology

  1998cited by this paper
• Plant diversity and ecosystem productivity: theoretical considerations.

  1997cited by this paper
• Positive interactions in communities.

  1994cited by this paper
• Generalized Collinearity Diagnostics

  1992cited by this paper
• The New Forest

  1937cited by this paper
• Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Publications Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Plant Functional Traits Improve Diversity-based Predictions of Temporal Stability of Grassland Productivity

  year unknowninfluential reference

• No citing papers are available for this paper.