Contrasting mechanisms of non‐vascular and vascular plants on spatial turnover in multifunctionality in the Antarctic continent

• Published in: Journal of Ecology
• Main Authors: Cui, Hanwen, Chen, Shuyan, Song, Hongxian, Liu, Ziyang, Chen, Jingwei, Zhang, Anning, Xiao, Sa, Jiang, Xiaoxuan, Yang, Zi, Li, Xin, An, Lizhe, Ding, Haitao, van der Plas, Fons
• Other Authors: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province, Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2024
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14346; https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2745.14346

Abstract Dominant plants play crucial roles in supporting the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Plants can influence the spatial heterogeneity of environmental factors, as well as the spatial turnover in the composition of soil communities (i.e. β‐diversity of soil communities). However, we still poorly understand how dominant plants drive the spatial turnover in multiple ecosystem functions (β‐multifunctionality hereafter), and to which extent the effects of dominant plants are mediated by changes in environmental heterogeneity and the β‐diversity of soil communities. Antarctica supports one of the most challenging environments on the planet including low temperature and water availability. Here, we collected soil samples under three dominant plants (lichen, moss and vascular plants) and bare ground. We measured carbon storage, nutrient availability, nutrient decomposition, microbial biomass and pathogen control to calculate β‐multifunctionality. Both non‐vascular and vascular plants were associated with increased β‐multifunctionality compared to bare ground. We further showed that lichen mainly affected β‐multifunctionality through soil temperature heterogeneity and β‐bacterial diversity. Similarly, moss mainly affected β‐multifunctionality through the spatial heterogeneity of soil water content and β‐bacterial diversity. However, vascular plants did not significantly affect environmental heterogeneity. Instead, the responses of β‐multifunctionality to vascular plants were mainly driven by the β‐diversity of soil communities. These results indicate that environmental heterogeneity is important for turnover in multiple ecosystem functions in early successional stages (dominated by non‐vascular plants), while the importance of soil communities' heterogeneity becomes more significant in late successional stages (dominated by vascular plants). Synthesis . Our findings highlight the fundamental role of dominant plants in controlling the spatial turnover in ecosystem functions, and suggest that accelerated ...