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Woody species diversity influences productivity and soil nutrient availability in tropical plantations

  • Ecosystem Ecology
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Abstract

We investigated the relationship between plant diversity and ecological function (production and nutrient cycling) in tropical tree plantations. Old plantations (65–72 years) of four different species, namely Araucaria cunninghamii, Agathis robusta, Toona ciliata and Flindersia brayleyana, as well as natural secondary forest were examined at Wongabel State Forest, in the wet tropics region of Queensland, Australia. Two young plantations (23 years) of Araucaria cunninghamii and Pinus caribaea were also examined. The close proximity of the older plantations and natural forests meant they had similar edaphic and climatic conditions. All plantations had been established as monocultures, but had been colonised by a range of native woody plants from the nearby rainforest. The extent to which this had occurred varied with the identity of the plantation species (from 2 to 17 species in 0.1 ha blocks). In many cases these additional species had grown up and joined the forest canopy. This study is one of the few to find a negative relationship between overstorey plant diversity and productivity. The conversion of natural forest with highly productive, low-diversity gymnosperm-dominated plantations (young and old Araucaria cunninghamii and Pinus caribaea) was found to be associated with lower soil nutrient availability (approximately five times less phosphorus and 2.5 times less nitrogen) and lower soil pH (mean = 6.28) compared to the other, less productive plantations. The dominant effects of two species, Araucaria cunninghamii and Hodgkinsonia frutescens, indicate that ecosystem functions such as production and nutrient availability are not determined solely by the number of species, but are more likely to be determined by the characteristics of the species present. This suggests that monoculture plantations can be used to successfully restore some functions (e.g. nutrient cycling and production), but that the level to which such functions can be restored will depend upon the species chosen and site conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mark Hunt and Nick Kelley from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries for their support financially and operationally with the field study component of this project. We would also like to thank Tony Irvine, Mila Bristow and Kerry Hanrahan (Department of Primary Industries, Forest Operations) for their assistance and expertise, as well as two anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved a previous draft of this document. Finally, we would like to thank Martina Langi, whose work on rainforest plantations in Northern Queensland sparked the idea for our separate study. We declare that this study complies with the current laws of Australia, where it was performed.

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  1. School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Jennifer Firn

  2. Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Peter D. Erskine & David Lamb

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  1. Jennifer Firn
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Correspondence to Jennifer Firn.

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Firn, J., Erskine, P.D. & Lamb, D. Woody species diversity influences productivity and soil nutrient availability in tropical plantations. Oecologia 154, 521–533 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0850-8

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