Relationships between functional diversity and aboveground biomass production in the Northern Tibetan alpine grasslands.

ABSTRACT: Functional diversity, the extent of functional differences among species in a community, drives biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) relationships. Here, four species traits and aboveground biomass production (ABP) were considered. We used two community-wide measures of plant functional composition, (1) community weighted means of trait values (CWM) and (2) functional trait diversity based on Rao's quadratic diversity (FD_Q) to evaluate the effects of functional diversity on the ABP in the Northern Tibetan alpine grasslands. Both species and functional diversity were positively related to the ABP. Functional trait composition had a larger predictive power for the ABP than species diversity and FD_Q, indicating a primary dependence of ecosystem property on the identity

SUBMITTER: Zhu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5036173 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature