TY - JOUR
T1 - Plant diversity enhances productivity and soil carbon storage
AU - Chen, Shiping
AU - Wang, Wantong
AU - Xu, Wenting
AU - Wang, Yang
AU - Wan, Hongwei
AU - Chen, Dima
AU - Tang, Zhiyao
AU - Tang, Xuli
AU - Zhou, Guoyi
AU - Xie, Zongqiang
AU - Zhou, Daowei
AU - Shangguan, Zhouping
AU - Huang, Jianhui
AU - He, Jin Sheng
AU - Wang, Yanfen
AU - Sheng, Jiandong
AU - Tang, Lisong
AU - Li, Xinrong
AU - Dong, Ming
AU - Wu, Yan
AU - Wang, Qiufeng
AU - Wang, Zhiheng
AU - Wu, Jianguo
AU - Stuart Chapin, F.
AU - Bai, Yongfei
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank all participants, a group of more than 1,000 scientists, for their contributions to the field work and laboratory analysis and Jingyun Fang, Guirui Yu, David Hooper, Shuijin Hu, Huifeng Hu, and Nianpeng He for their valuable comments and suggestions on an early version of this paper. This work was financially supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant XDA05050000 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 31630010 and 31320103916.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Despite evidence from experimental grasslands that plant diversity increases biomass production and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, it remains unclear whether this is true in natural ecosystems, especially under climatic variations and human disturbances. Based on field observations from 6,098 forest, shrubland, and grassland sites across China and predictions from an integrative model combining multiple theories, we systematically examined the direct effects of climate, soils, and human impacts on SOC storage versus the indirect effects mediated by species richness (SR), aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), and belowground biomass (BB). We found that favorable climates (high temperature and precipitation) had a consistent negative effect on SOC storage in forests and shrublands, but not in grasslands. Climate favorability, particularly high precipitation, was associated with both higher SR and higher BB, which had consistent positive effects on SOC storage, thus offsetting the direct negative effect of favorable climate on SOC. The indirect effects of climate on SOC storage depended on the relationships of SR with ANPP and BB, which were consistently positive in all biome types. In addition, human disturbance and soil pH had both direct and indirect effects on SOC storage, with the indirect effects mediated by changes in SR, ANPP, and BB. High soil pH had a consistently negative effect on SOC storage. Our findings have important implications for improving global carbon cycling models and ecosystem management: Maintaining high levels of diversity can enhance soil carbon sequestration and help sustain the benefits of plant diversity and productivity.
AB - Despite evidence from experimental grasslands that plant diversity increases biomass production and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, it remains unclear whether this is true in natural ecosystems, especially under climatic variations and human disturbances. Based on field observations from 6,098 forest, shrubland, and grassland sites across China and predictions from an integrative model combining multiple theories, we systematically examined the direct effects of climate, soils, and human impacts on SOC storage versus the indirect effects mediated by species richness (SR), aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), and belowground biomass (BB). We found that favorable climates (high temperature and precipitation) had a consistent negative effect on SOC storage in forests and shrublands, but not in grasslands. Climate favorability, particularly high precipitation, was associated with both higher SR and higher BB, which had consistent positive effects on SOC storage, thus offsetting the direct negative effect of favorable climate on SOC. The indirect effects of climate on SOC storage depended on the relationships of SR with ANPP and BB, which were consistently positive in all biome types. In addition, human disturbance and soil pH had both direct and indirect effects on SOC storage, with the indirect effects mediated by changes in SR, ANPP, and BB. High soil pH had a consistently negative effect on SOC storage. Our findings have important implications for improving global carbon cycling models and ecosystem management: Maintaining high levels of diversity can enhance soil carbon sequestration and help sustain the benefits of plant diversity and productivity.
KW - Aboveground net primary productivity
KW - Belowground biomass
KW - Human disturbance
KW - Soil carbon storage
KW - Species richness
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1700298114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1700298114
M3 - Article
C2 - 29666315
AN - SCOPUS:85045617203
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 115
SP - 4027
EP - 4032
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 16
ER -