Associations of plant functional diversity with carbon accumulation in a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Rawat, Monika; Arunachalam, A.; Arunachalam, A.; Alatalo, Juha M.; Pandey, Rajiv

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.12.005

Cited by 47 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…We found that above-ground biomass and soil organic C were both positively associated with leaf N. The positive association of leaf N with above-ground biomass reflects the exploitative strategy employed by plant species to gain a faster return from nutrient exchange and investment in the ecosystem (Wright et al, 2004;Díaz et al, 2016;Rawat et al, 2019). These results are consistent with previous findings that plant traits explain 60% of variation in above-ground biomass (Becknell and Powers, 2014).…”

Section: Plant Functional Traits and Ecosystem Propertiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Relative contribution of plant traits and soil properties to the functioning of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Rawat

Arunachalam

et al. 2020

CATENA

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Plant-soil interactions are a major determinant of changes in forest ecosystem processes and functioning. We conducted a trait-based study to quantify the contribution of plant traits and soil properties to above-and below-ground ecosystem properties in temperate forest in the Indian Himalayas. Nine plant traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf water content, leaf dry matter content, leaf carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), leaf C/N, and leaf N/P) and eight soil properties (pH, moisture, available N, P, potassium (K), total C, N, P) were selected for determination of their contribution to major ecosystem processes (above-ground biomass C, soil organic C, soil microbial biomass C, N, and P, and soil respiration) in temperate forest. Among the plant traits studied, leaf C, N, P, and leaf N/P ratio proved to be the main contributors to above-ground biomass, explaining 20-27% of variation. Leaf N, P, and leaf N/P were the main contributors to below-ground soil organic C, soil microbial biomass C, N, and P, and soil respiration (explaining 33% of variation). Together, the soil properties pH, available P, total N and C explained 60% of variation in above-ground biomass, while pH and total C explained 56% of variation in soil organic C. Other soil properties (available P, total C and N) also explained much of the variation in soil microbial biomass C (52%) and N (67%), while soil pH explained some of variation in soil microbial biomass N (14%). Available P, total N, and pH explained soil microbial biomass P (81%), while soil respiration was only explained by soil total C (70%). Thus leaf traits and soil characteristics make a significant contribution to explaining variations in above-and below-ground ecosystem processes and functioning in temperate forest in the Indian Himalayas. Consequently, tree species for afforestation, restoration, and commercial forestry should be carefully selected, as they can influence the climate change mitigation potential of forest in terms of C stocks in biomass and soils.

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Section: Plant Functional Traits and Ecosystem Propertiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Relative contribution of plant traits and soil properties to the functioning of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Rawat

Arunachalam

et al. 2020

CATENA

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“…We conclude that, in assessing the relative contributions of plant taxonomic (species richness) and functional diversity for predicting aboveground biomass, functional diversity explains more than the taxonomic diversity. We found that the mass-ratio hypothesis and the niche complementarity hypothesis were not mutually exclusive; rather, these metrics jointly predicted the variability in aboveground biomass [11]. However, FD following the niche complementarity hypothesis was more important than the CWM (i.e., the mass ratio hypothesis).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Therefore, high aboveground biomass in forest communities might be associated with a high proportion of unshaded leaves [12]. Furthermore, the significant increase in aboveground biomass with increasing CWM LC, CWM LN, and CWM LP also suggests that short lived leaves (high SLA), having a higher leaf elemental concentration through their canopy properties, might improve soil properties by adding nutrients into the soil, which, in turn, might influence aboveground biomass [11]. These findings are in agreement with previous empirical studies in a tropical forest [29] and successional biomes of temperate [8] and tropical regions [12], which implies that the presence of a leaf economic spectrum [24] will have a significant impact on canopy properties and ecosystem processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Functional diversity has important linkages with ecosystem processes. Functional diversity has been used for describing the variability in carbon stock deposited in the aboveground biomass [11]. The relationship between carbon accumulation in the aboveground biomass and plant functional diversity depends upon the forest types and the diversity of functional traits in a plant community [1,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Disentangling the Contributions of Plant Taxonomic and Functional Diversities in Shaping Aboveground Biomass of a Restored Forest Landscape in Southern China

Hanif

Rao

et al. 2019

Plants

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Restoration is essential for supporting key ecosystem functions such as aboveground biomass production. However, the relative importance of functional versus taxonomic diversity in predicting aboveground biomass during restoration is poorly studied. Here, we used a trait-based approach to test for the importance of multiple plant diversity attributes in regulating aboveground biomass in a 30-years-old restored subtropical forest in southern China. We show that both taxonomic and functional diversities are significant and positive regulators of aboveground biomass; however, functional diversity (FD) was more important than taxonomic diversity (species richness) in controlling aboveground biomass. FD had the strongest direct effect on aboveground biomass compared with species richness, soil nutrients, and community weighted mean (CWM) traits. Our results further indicate that leaf and root morphological traits and traits related to the nutrient content in plant tissues represent the existence of a leaf and root economic spectrum, and the acquisitive resource use strategy influenced aboveground biomass. Our results suggest that both taxonomic and FD play a role in shaping aboveground biomass, but FD is more important in supporting aboveground biomass in this type of environments. These results imply that enhancing FD is important to restoring and managing degraded forest landscapes.

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“…The results of the present study show that soil-based functions of ecosystem increase simultaneously with increasing richness and diversity of plant species. Many studies have recorded a positive relationship between increased species richness and ecosystem function including soil carbon sequestration (Cardinale et al 2012;Tahmasebi et al 2017), microbial respiration (Dias et al 2010), and microbial biomass carbon (Rawat et al 2019). A positive relationship was also observed between ecosystem functions and species richness not only in forest ecosystems Sullivan et al 2017;Liu et al 2018) but also in other ecosystems such as grasslands (Li et al 2019) or marine ecosystems (Worm et al 2006;Burkepile and Hay 2008).…”

Section: Selection Effect Vs Niche Complimentary: Response Of Total mentioning

confidence: 98%

Linkage between plant species diversity and soil-based functions along a post-agricultural succession is influenced by the vegetative forms

Heydari

Zeynali

Omidipour

et al. 2020

Environ Monit Assess

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There is a growing body of knowledge that ecosystem functions, in particular soil-based ecosystem functions, are related to biodiversity. However, how plant species diversity influences soil-based functions along post-agricultural secondary succession is still a largely ignored question in Mediterranean semi-arid conditions. Therefore, we used the plant functional group approach to investigate the relationships between plant species diversity indices and soil-based functions including microbial biomass carbon (MBC), basal respiration (BR) and carbon sequestration (CS) across three different stages of the vegetation succession corresponding to ~ five years after agricultural abandonment, ~ 15 years after abandonment, and oak forests which represent the terminal stage. We also tested if these relationships are supported by the niche complementarity and selection effect hypotheses. The results showed that soil-based functions significantly increased with time since abandonment as BR, MBC and CS increased respectively by 1.7, 1.5 and 2.7 times across the three successional stages. We also found strong correlations between the diversity indices and the soil-based functions BR, MBC and CS which were positive for richness (R 2 values: 0.75, 0.74 and 0.75) and Shannon diversity (R 2 values: 0.61, 0.58 and 0.61) but negative for evenness (R 2 values: 0.38, 0.38 and 0.36 for, respectively). Similarly, richness and Shannon diversity of the different plant functional groups positively correlated with soil-based functions. However, contrasted results were found for evenness which positively correlated with soil-based functions for perennial grass only. We suggested that increasing the diversity of plant species and facilitating dominant species would be needed to improve the soil-based ecosystem functions after abandonment of degraded soils. This study also revealed that the mechanisms behind the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystems functions were influenced by the vegetative forms. Keywords Carbon sequestration. Cropland abandonment. Land use change. Richness. Semiarid forest Highlights  Species diversity and soil-based functions improve along the successional stages after land abandonment  The relationships between plant diversity and soil-based functions are influenced by the plant functional groups..  Niche complementarity plays a more vital role in soil-based ecosystem functions than the selection effect.

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Associations of plant functional diversity with carbon accumulation in a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Cited by 47 publications

References 52 publications

Relative contribution of plant traits and soil properties to the functioning of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Relative contribution of plant traits and soil properties to the functioning of a temperate forest ecosystem in the Indian Himalayas

Disentangling the Contributions of Plant Taxonomic and Functional Diversities in Shaping Aboveground Biomass of a Restored Forest Landscape in Southern China

Linkage between plant species diversity and soil-based functions along a post-agricultural succession is influenced by the vegetative forms

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