Abstract
Ecosystem functioning depends on biodiversity at multiple trophic levels, yet relationships between multitrophic diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality have been poorly explored, with studies often focusing on individual trophic levels and functions and on specific ecosystem types. Here, we show that plant diversity can affect ecosystem functioning both directly and by affecting other trophic levels. Using data on 13 trophic groups and 13 ecosystem functions from two large biodiversity experiments—one representing temperate grasslands and the other subtropical forests—we found that plant diversity increases multifunctionality through elevated multitrophic diversity. Across both experiments, the association between multitrophic diversity and multifunctionality was stronger than the relationship between the diversity of individual trophic groups and multifunctionality. Our results also suggest that the role of multitrophic diversity is greater in forests than in grasslands. These findings imply that, to promote sustained ecosystem multifunctionality, conservation planning must consider the diversity of both plants and higher trophic levels.
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Data availability
Biodiversity and ecosystem function data that support the findings of this study are available via Figshare at https://figshare.com/s/91cbc9f9aec78e2dced5 (ref. 81).
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Jena Experiment consortium and the BEF-China platform for their efforts in maintaining the experiments and the many student helpers and local helpers for taking the measurements. This study was supported by the National Key Research Development Program of China (2022YFF0802300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32222055, 32301337 and 32161123003), the research units BEF-China and MultiTroph funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 891 and 452861007/FOR 5281, respectively), and the DFG-funded international research training group (TreeDí, 319936945/GRK2324). The Jena Experiment was supported by the DFG (FOR 5000). X.L. was funded by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2023019). N.E. gratefully acknowledges the support of iDiv, which is funded by the DFG (FZT 118, 202548816 and Ei 862/29-1). A.M.K. was partly funded by a Hedda Anderson Visiting Chair grant.
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X.L. and K.M. contributed to the conceptualization of the project. Yi Li, A.S., A.E., N.E., Y.H., G.A., C.A., A.A., M. Bonkowski, H.B., M. Bröcher, D.C., J.C., Y.C., J-T.C., M.C., X.D., F.F., G.G., L.G., P.-F.G., A.H., A.K., M.L., S.L., Q.L., Yingbin Li, A.L., S.M., G.O., G.R., T.S., M.D.S., M.S., M.-Q.W., N.Z. and C.-D.Z. contributed to the methodology and investigation. Yi Li and X.L. contributed to the visualization. The writing was led by Yi Li, X.L., A.S., A.E., N.E., B.S., K.M. and D.C., with reviewing and editing contributed to by all authors.
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Li, Y., Schuldt, A., Ebeling, A. et al. Plant diversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality via multitrophic diversity. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02517-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02517-2
