Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands
Loading...
Official URL
Full text at PDC
Publication date
2012
Advisors (or tutors)
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Citations
Exportar
Citation
Maestre, F. T., Quero, J. L., Gotelli, N. J. et al. «Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands». Science, vol. 335, n.o 6065, enero de 2012, pp. 214-18. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1215442.
Abstract
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.
Description
Acknowledgments:
The long-term data on the demography and foraging ecology of wandering albatrosses at Possession Island, Crozet Islands, were supported by the French Polar Institute IPEV (program no. 109 to H.W.), with additional funding from the Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation. The study is a contribution to the Program ANR Biodiversité 2005-11 REMIGE. We acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), and the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP’s) Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP-3 multimodel data set. Support for data and model selection was provided by S. Jenouvrier. We thank the many field workers involved in the Crozet long-term monitoring since 1966 and in tracking programs since 1989, and D. Besson for help with the management of the demographic database. M.L. was funded by a postdoctoral contract of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Ref. EX2007-1148) and Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (PIEF-GA-2008-220063). We are grateful to L. Riotte-Lambert for help with data analysis and C. Barbraud, C. A. Bost, Y. Cherel, and S. Jenouvrier for comments on the manuscript.