RT Journal Article
T1 Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands
A1 Maestre, Fernando
A1 Quero, José
A1 Gotelli, Nicholas
A1 Escudero, Adrián
A1 Ochoa, Victoria
A1 Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel
A1 García-Gómez, Miguel
A1 Bowker, Matthew
A1 Soliveres, Santiago
A1 Escolar, Cristina
A1 García-Palacios, Pablo
A1 Berdugo, Miguel
A1 Valencia Gómez, Enrique
A1 Gozalo, Beatriz
A1 Gallardo, Antonio
A1 Aguilera, Lorgio
A1 Arredondo, Tulio
A1 Blones, Julio
A1 Boeken, Bertrand
A1 Bran, Donaldo
A1 Conceição, Abel
A1 Cabrera, Omar
A1 Chaieb, Mohamed
A1 Derak, Mchich
A1 Eldridge, David
A1 Espinosa, Carlos
A1 Florentino, Adriana
A1 Gaitán, Juan
A1 Gatica, Gabriel
A1 Ghiloufi, Wahida
A1 Gómez González, Susana
A1 Gutiérrez, Julio
A1 Hernández, Rosa
A1 Huang, Xuewen
A1 Huber Sannwald, Elisabeth
A1 Jankju, Mohammad
A1 Miriti, Maria
A1 Monerris, Jorge
A1 Mau, Rebecca
A1 Morici, Ernesto
A1 Naseri, Kamal
A1 Ospina, Abelardo
A1 Polo, Vicente
A1 Prina, Aníbal
A1 Pucheta, Eduardo
A1 Ramírez Collantes, David
A1 Romão, Roberto
A1 Tighe, Matthew
A1 Torres-Díaz, Cristian
A1 Val, James
A1 Veiga, José
A1 Wang, Deli
A1 Zaady, Eli
AB 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.
PB American Association for the Advancement of Science
SN 0036-8075
YR 2012
FD 2012
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94909
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94909
LA eng
NO 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.
NO 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.
NO French Polar Institute
NO Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation
NO Ministerio de Educación (España)
NO European Commission
DS Docta Complutense
RD 28 abr 2025