Summary 1.Although there is ample support for positive species richness-productivity relationships in planted grassland experiments, a recent 48-site study found no diversity-productivity relationship (DPR) in herbaceous communities. Thus, debate persists about diversity effects in natural versus planted systems. Additionally, current knowledge is weak regarding the influence of evenness on the DPRs, how DPRs are affected by the variation in life-history traits among constituent species in polycultures and how DPRs differ among biomes. The impacts of these factors on DPRs in forest ecosystems are even more poorly understood. 2. We performed a meta-analysis of 54 studies to reconcile DPRs in forest ecosystems. We quantified the net diversity effect as log effect size [ln(ES)], the log ratio of the productivity in polycultures to the average of those in monocultures within the same type of mixture, site condition and stand age of each study. The first use of a boosted regression tree model in meta-analysis, a useful method to partition the effects of multiple predictors rather than relying on vote-counting of individual studies, unveiled the relative influences of individual predictors. 3. Global average ln(ES) was 0.2128, indicating 23.7% higher productivity in polycultures than monocultures. The final model explained 21% of the variation in ln(ES). The predictors that substantially accounted for the explained variation included evenness (34%), heterogeneity of shade tolerance (29%), richness (13%) and stand age (15%). In contrast, heterogeneity of nitrogen fixation and growth habits, biome and stand origin (naturally established versus planted) contributed negligibly (each £ 4%). Log effect size strongly increased with evenness from 0.6 to 1 and with richness from 2 to 6. Furthermore, it was higher with heterogeneity of shade tolerance and generally increased with stand age. 4. Synthesis. Our analysis is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate the critical role of species evenness, richness and the importance of contrasting traits in defining net diversity effects in forest polycultures. While testing the specific mechanisms is beyond the scope of our analysis, our results should motivate future studies to link richness, evenness, contrasting traits and life-history stage to the mechanisms that are expected to produce positive net biodiversity effects such as niche differentiation, facilitation and reduced Janzen-Connell effects.

Summary There is growing concern over rates of global species diversity loss and its implications on healthy ecosystem functioning. While positive relationships between tree species diversity and forest biomass production have been observed, forests are structurally complex, consisting of understorey vegetation layers that also contribute to ecosystem functioning as they often account for the majority of species richness. However, relationships between understorey vegetation diversity and function are largely unexplored. Further, few studies have simultaneously assessed how both overstorey and understory vegetation interact and contribute to overall ecosystem function. By analysing Canada's National Forest Inventory data base using structural equation modelling, we explored the relationships between species richness and above‐ground biomass production across forest vegetation strata while accounting for potentially confounding factors, including climate, physical site characteristics and forest ageing. We found positive relationships between species richness and biomass production across all forest vegetation layers, but the relationship was strongest for the overstorey layer. Species richness of the understorey tree, shrub and herb layers was positively related to overstorey species richness. However, overstorey biomass had a negative effect on the biomass production of all understorey layers. Our results suggest that resource filtering by overstorey trees might have reduced the strength of the positive diversity–productivity relationships in the forest understorey, supporting previous hypotheses that the magnitude and direction of diversity–productivity relationships is context specific and dependent on the conditions of the surrounding environment. Further, heterogeneity in understory resources, as affected by the overstorey, may promote niche complementarity as the main mechanism driving diversity–productivity relationships in understorey vegetation.

Canopy exchange is one of the most important processes involved in the internal transfer of elements in forest ecosystems. However, little information is available on how canopy exchange influences the input of base cations in subalpine forests. Therefore, the concentrations and fluxes of base cations in throughfall and stemflow were investigated from August 2015 to July 2016 (except for the frozen season) in a representative subalpine spruce plantation in the eastern Tibet Plateau. Our results showed that the mean concentrations of K, Ca, Na and Mg were higher in the stemflow than in the throughfall and precipitation. The total input fluxes of K, Ca, Na and Mg in the internal forest were lower than those in the non-forest. Moreover, the results from the canopy budget model indicated that the canopy exchange fluxes of K, Ca and Mg were higher than the dry deposition fluxes, and Ca and Mg were uptaken, whereas K was leached when precipitation passed through the canopy. Therefore, the results suggested that the input of base cations is mainly controlled by canopy exchange during precipitation in subalpine forest ecosystems, and the canopy could alter the sinks and sources of base cations from precipitation.

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Argentian cryptomelane as a quite rare variety is determined during the investigation of Mn-Ag ore samples from Xiangguang deposit along the northern margin of North China craton. The mineral observed by a polarizing petrographic microscope involves concentric ring-band, pisolitic and veinlet structures and greyish white color. The scanning electron microscopy reveals a large number of elongated nanocrystals in the forms of nanofibers and nanorods in this densely natural argentian cryptomelane. The specifically chemical features in two samples of XG-C-1 and XG-C-2 of cryptomelane are: (1) The silver content ranges from about 0.22-3.15 wt%, which is much higher than that of other manganese oxides including ranciéite, chalcophanite and coronodite found in this deposit as well. Both of two argentian cryptomelane samples feature two main Raman scattering contributions at about 580 cm −1 and 630 cm −1 , belonging to the Mn-O lattice vibrations within the MnO 6 octahedral double chains, which can distinguish from other three manganese oxides. The Ag + prefers to locate in the tunnel sites substituting K + of cryptomelane due to its large radius and the same monovalent state with K + . Some chain-width disorders characterized by transmission electron microscopy are probably caused by these cation substitutions.