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Published October 5, 2018 | Version v1
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Data from: Impacts of species richness on productivity in a large-scale subtropical forest experiment

Authors/Creators

  • 1. University of Zurich
  • 2. Leuphana University
  • 3. Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
  • 4. Institute of Botany
  • 5. Jingdezhen University
  • 6. University of Freiburg
  • 7. University of Tübingen
  • 8. German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research
  • 9. East China Normal University
  • 10. Institute of Zoology
  • 11. Wenzhou University
  • 12. Peking University
  • 13. University of Bern
  • 14. Institute of Microbiology
  • 15. Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • 16. University of Minnesota
  • 17. University of Oxford
  • 18. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
  • 19. Institute of Soil Science
  • 20. Institute of Applied Ecology
  • 21. Central South University of Forestry and Technology
  • 22. Zhejiang University
  • 23. Zhejiang Normal University

Description

Biodiversity experiments have shown that species loss reduces ecosystem functioning in grassland. To test whether this result can be extrapolated to forests, the main contributors to terrestrial primary productivity, requires large-scale experiments. We manipulated tree species richness by planting more than 150,000 trees in plots with 1 to 16 species. Simulating multiple extinction scenarios, we found that richness strongly increased stand-level productivity. After 8 years, 16-species mixtures had accumulated over twice the amount of carbon found in average monocultures and similar amounts as those of two commercial monocultures. Species richness effects were strongly associated with functional and phylogenetic diversity. A shrub addition treatment reduced tree productivity, but this reduction was smaller at high shrub species richness. Our results encourage multispecies afforestation strategies to restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

Notes

aat6405_data
Plot-level aboveground productivity indicators underlying published analyses.
aat6405
R script with statistical models presented in article.

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Additional details

Related works

Is cited by
10.1126/science.aat6405 (DOI)