TY - JOUR

T1 - Evenness mediates the global relationship between forest productivity and richness

AU - Hordijk, Iris

AU - Maynard, Daniel S.

AU - Hart, Simon P.

AU - Lidong, Mo

AU - ter Steege, Hans

AU - Liang, Jingjing

AU - de-Miguel, Sergio

AU - Nabuurs, Gert Jan

AU - Reich, Peter B.

AU - Abegg, Meinrad

AU - Adou Yao, C. Yves

AU - Alberti, Giorgio

AU - Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M.

AU - Alvarado, Braulio V.

AU - Esteban, Alvarez Davila

AU - Alvarez-Loayza, Patricia

AU - Alves, Luciana F.

AU - Ammer, Christian

AU - Antón-Fernández, Clara

AU - Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro

AU - Arroyo, Luzmila

AU - Avitabile, Valerio

AU - Aymard C, Gerardo A.

AU - Baker, Timothy

AU - Bałazy, Radomir

AU - Banki, Olaf

AU - Barroso, Jorcely

AU - Bastian, Meredith L.

AU - Bastin, Jean Francois

AU - Birigazzi, Luca

AU - Birnbaum, Philippe

AU - Bitariho, Robert

AU - Boeckx, Pascal

AU - Bongers, Frans

AU - Bouriaud, Olivier

AU - Brancalion, Pedro H.S.

AU - Brandl, Susanne

AU - Brienen, Roel

AU - Broadbent, Eben N.

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

AU - Bussotti, Filippo

AU - Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto

AU - César, Ricardo G.

AU - Cesljar, Goran

AU - Chazdon, Robin

AU - Chen, Han Y.H.

AU - Chisholm, Chelsea

AU - Cienciala, Emil

AU - Clark, Connie J.

AU - Clark, David B.

AU - Colletta, Gabriel

AU - Coomes, David

AU - Cornejo Valverde, Fernando

AU - Corral-Rivas, Jose J.

AU - Crim, Philip

AU - Cumming, Jonathan

AU - Dayanandan, Selvadurai

AU - de Gasper, André L.

AU - Decuyper, Mathieu

AU - Derroire, Géraldine

AU - DeVries, Ben

AU - Djordjevic, Ilija

AU - Iêda, Amaral

AU - Dourdain, Aurélie

AU - Nestor Laurier, Engone Obiang

AU - Enquist, Brian

AU - Eyre, Teresa

AU - Fandohan, Adandé Belarmain

AU - Fayle, Tom M.

AU - Ferreira, Leandro V.

AU - Feldpausch, Ted R.

AU - Finér, Leena

AU - Fischer, Markus

AU - Fletcher, Christine

AU - Frizzera, Lorenzo

AU - Gamarra, Javier G.P.

AU - Gianelle, Damiano

AU - Glick, Henry B.

AU - Harris, David

AU - Hector, Andrew

AU - Hemp, Andreas

AU - Hengeveld, Geerten

AU - Hérault, Bruno

AU - Herbohn, John

AU - Hillers, Annika

AU - Honorio Coronado, Eurídice N.

AU - Hui, Cang

AU - Cho, Hyunkook

AU - Ibanez, Thomas

AU - Bin Jung, Il

AU - Imai, Nobuo

AU - Jagodzinski, Andrzej M.

AU - Jaroszewicz, Bogdan

AU - Johanssen, Vivian

AU - Joly, Carlos A.

AU - Jucker, Tommaso

AU - Karminov, Viktor

AU - Kartawinata, Kuswata

AU - Kearsley, Elizabeth

AU - Kenfack, David

AU - Kennard, Deborah

AU - Kepfer-Rojas, Sebastian

AU - Keppel, Gunnar

AU - Khan, Mohammed Latif

AU - Killeen, Timothy

AU - Kim, Hyun Seok

AU - Kitayama, Kanehiro

AU - Köhl, Michael

AU - Korjus, Henn

AU - Kraxner, Florian

AU - Laarmann, Diana

AU - Lang, Mait

AU - Lewis, Simon

AU - Lu, Huicui

AU - Lukina, Natalia

AU - Maitner, Brian

AU - Malhi, Yadvinder

AU - Marcon, Eric

AU - Marimon, Beatriz Schwantes

AU - Marimon-Junior, Ben Hur

AU - Marshall, Andrew Robert

AU - Martin, Emanuel

AU - Martynenko, Olga

AU - Meave, Jorge A.

AU - Melo-Cruz, Omar

AU - Mendoza, Casimiro

AU - Merow, Cory

AU - Stanislaw, Miscicki

AU - Mendoza, Abel Monteagudo

AU - Moreno, Vanessa

AU - Mukul, Sharif A.

AU - Mundhenk, Philip

AU - Nava-Miranda, Maria G.

AU - Neill, David

AU - Neldner, Victor

AU - Nevenic, Radovan

AU - Ngugi, Michael

AU - Niklaus, Pascal A.

AU - Oleksyn, Jacek

AU - Ontikov, Petr

AU - Ortiz-Malavasi, Edgar

AU - Pan, Yude

AU - Paquette, Alain

AU - Parada-Gutierrez, Alexander

AU - Parfenova, Elena

AU - Park, Minjee

AU - Parren, Marc

AU - Parthasarathy, Narayanaswamy

AU - Peri, Pablo L.

AU - Pfautsch, Sebastian

AU - Phillips, Oliver L.

AU - Picard, Nicolas

AU - Piedade, Maria Teresa

AU - Piotto, Daniel

AU - Pitman, Nigel C.A.

AU - Polo, Irina

AU - Poorter, Lourens

AU - Poulsen, Axel Dalberg

AU - Poulsen, John R.

AU - Pretzsch, Hans

AU - Ramirez Arevalo, Freddy

AU - Restrepo-Correa, Zorayda

AU - Rodeghiero, Mirco

AU - Rolim, Samir

AU - Roopsind, Anand

AU - Rovero, Francesco

AU - Rutishauser, Ervan

AU - Saikia, Purabi

AU - Salas-Eljatib, Christian

AU - Schall, Peter

AU - Schepaschenko, Dmitry

AU - Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael

AU - Schmid, Bernhard

AU - Schöngart, Jochen

AU - Searle, Eric B.

AU - Šebeň, Vladimír

AU - Serra-Diaz, Josep M.

AU - Sheil, Douglas

AU - Shvidenko, Anatoly

AU - Silva-Espejo, Javier

AU - Silveira, Marcos

AU - Singh, James

AU - Sist, Plinio

AU - Slik, Ferry

AU - Sonké, Bonaventure

AU - Souza, Alexandre F.

AU - Stereńczak, Krzysztof

AU - Svenning, Jens Christian

AU - Svoboda, Miroslav

AU - Swanepoel, Ben

AU - Targhetta, Natalia

AU - Tchebakova, Nadja

AU - Thomas, Raquel

AU - Tikhonova, Elena

AU - Umunay, Peter

AU - Usoltsev, Vladimir

AU - Valencia, Renato

AU - Valladares, Fernando

AU - van der Plas, Fons

AU - Tran, Do Van

AU - Van Nuland, Michael E.

AU - Vasquez Martinez, Rodolfo

AU - Verbeeck, Hans

AU - Viana, Helder

AU - Vibrans, Alexander C.

AU - Vieira, Simone

AU - von Gadow, Klaus

AU - Wang, Hua Feng

AU - Watson, James

AU - Werner, Gijsbert D.A.

AU - Wiser, Susan K.

AU - Wittmann, Florian

AU - Wortel, Verginia

AU - Zagt, Roderick

AU - Zawila-Niedzwiecki, Tomasz

AU - Zhang, Chunyu

AU - Zhao, Xiuhai

AU - Zhou, Mo

AU - Zhu, Zhi Xin

AU - Zo-Bi, Irie Casimir

AU - Crowther, Thomas W.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - 1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.

AB - 1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.

KW - diversity

KW - ecosystem function and services

KW - evenness

KW - forests

KW - global

KW - productivity

KW - species richness

U2 - 10.1111/1365-2745.14098

DO - 10.1111/1365-2745.14098

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85159045617

VL - 111

SP - 1308

EP - 1326

JO - Journal of Ecology

JF - Journal of Ecology

SN - 0022-0477

IS - 6

ER -