Functional trait diversity maximizes ecosystem multifunctionality

• Published in: Nature Ecology & Evolution
• Main Authors: Gross, Nicolas, Le Bagousse-Pinguet, Yoann, Liancourt, Pierre, Berdugo, Miguel, Gotelli, Nicholas J., Maestre, Fernando T.
• Other Authors: Departamento de Biología y Geología Mostoles, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Madrid (URJC), Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Escuela Supererio de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnologia, Departamento de Biologia y Geologia, Fisica y Quimica Inorganica, Area de Biodiversidad y Conservacion, Faculty of Science, Department of Botany, University of South Bohemia, Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IB / CAS), Czech Academy of Sciences Prague (CAS), AgreenSkills+ FP7-609398, European Project: 242658,EC:FP7:ERC,ERC-2009-StG,BIOCOM(2010)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Community ecology; Ecosystem ecology; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01573640; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0132

International audience Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has been a core ecological research topic over the last decades. Although a key hypothesis is that the diversity of functional traits determines ecosystem functioning, we do not know how much trait diversity is needed to maintain multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously (multifunctionality). Here, we uncovered a scaling relationship between the abundance distribution of two key plant functional traits (specific leaf area, maximum plant height) and multifunctionality in 124 dryland plant communities spread over all continents except Antarctica. For each trait, we found a strong empirical relationship between the skewness and the kurtosis of the trait distributions that cannot be explained by chance. This relationship predicted a strikingly high trait diversity within dryland plant communities, which was associated with a local maximization of multifunctionality. Skewness and kurtosis had a much stronger impact on multifunctionality than other important multifunctionality drivers such as species richness and aridity. The scaling relationship identified here quantifies how much trait diversity is required to maximize multifunctionality locally. Trait distributions can be used to predict the functional consequences of biodiversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems.