Long-term response of forest productivity to climate change is mostly driven by change in tree species composition.

ABSTRACT: Climate change affects ecosystem functioning directly through impacts on plant physiology, resulting in changes of global productivity. However, climate change has also an indirect impact on ecosystems, through changes in the composition and diversity of plant communities. The relative importance of these direct and indirect effects has not been evaluated within a same generic approach yet. Here we took advantage of a novel approach for disentangling these two effects in European temperate forests across a large climatic gradient, through a large simulation-based study using a forest succession model. We first showed that if productivity positively correlates with realized tree species richness under a changed climate, indirect effects appear pivotal to understand the magnitude of climate

SUBMITTER: Morin X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5884854 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature