Ecological Research

, Volume 22, Issue 4, pp 629–634 | Cite as

Effects of different components of diversity on productivity in artificial plant communities

Original Article
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Abstract

In an experiment on artificial plant communities, the effects of three components of plant diversity—plant species diversity, plant functional group diversity and plant functional diversity—on community productivity and soil water content were compared. We found that simple regression analysis showed a positive diversity effect on ecosystem processes (productivity and soil water content). However, when three components of diversity were included in the multiple regression analyses, the results showed that functional group diversity and functional diversity had more important effects on productivity and resource use efficiency. These results suggested that, compared with species number, functional differences among species and the range of functional traits carried by plants are the basis of biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning. These diversity effects of increasing functional group diversity or functional diversity were likely because species differing greatly in size, life form, phenology and capacity to capture and use resources efficiently in diverse communities realize complementary resource use in temporal, spatial, and biological ways.

Keywords

Functional diversity Functional group diversity Functional trait Resource use complementarity Species diversity 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Stéphan Jacquet and Li B for their critical reading of this manuscript. The research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (grant no. 2002CB 111505).

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Copyright information

© The Ecological Society of Japan 2007

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, Ministry of Agriculture, PRC, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and TechnologyLanzhou UniversityLanzhouChina
  2. 2.Key Laboratory of Arid and Grassland Ecology at Lanzhou University, Ministry of Education, PRC, College of Life SciencesLanzhou UniversityLanzhouChina

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