2023-05-23
Lately, the researchers of forest management from the College of Forestry made new progress in biodiversity–spatial stability relationship among regional communities across different spatial scales and environmental conditions in a temperate forest region. Related research result“Environmental filtering drives biodiversity–spatial stability relationships in a large temperate forest region” was published in international renowned journal Functional Ecology (Q1, IF=6.282).
Based on an extensive dataset, the study explored biodiversity–spatial stability relationships in a natural forest region with a large species pool of woody plants and a wide range of environmental conditions. The results showed that biodiversity increased spatial stability by increasing species asynchrony, but decreased population stability. The portfolio effects on spatial stability increased and reached saturation at the intermediate scale of regional communities. The results also demonstrated that the environmental dependence of portfolio effects was mediated through the effect of population stability and species asynchrony on productivity stability along a wide range of environmental gradients. The findings suggest that incorporating different spatial scales and environmental conditions into the analysis of the biodiversity–spatial stability relationship is key to a better understanding of how biodiversity mediates spatial stability.
The first author of the article is PhD student Lin Senxuan from the College of Forestry. The corresponding author is Professor Zhao Haixiu. PhD student Qiao Xuetao, Associate Prof. Geng Yan, Prof. Zhang Chunyu, Prof. Klaus von Gadow from University of Göttingen, Germany, also contrituted to the research. The research was supported by the Key Project of National Key Research and Development Plan (2022YFD 2201003), and Beijing Forestry University Outstanding Young Talent Cultivation Project (2019JQ03001).
Paper Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14334
