Global patterns and abiotic drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality in dominant natural ecosystems

The potential patterns and processes of ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) across global ecosystems are largely unknown, which limits our understanding of how ecosystems respond to drivers. Here we compile a global dataset that consists of 973 unique sites across the forest, grassland, and shrub ecosystems. We identify a critical global pattern of hump-shaped EMF relationship with mean annual precipitation at a threshold of similar to 671 mm, where low and high precipitation patterns are discriminated. We find that climatic and soil factors jointly drive the EMF in low precipitation areas, and climatic factors dominate the EMF in high precipitation regions. However, when comparing across the three dominant ecosystems and precipitation regions, the key driver in EMF differs substantially. Specifically, climatic and soil factors dominate the EMF of low and high precipitation regions across forest ecosystems, respectively. Climatic drivers dominate the EMF under different precipitation conditions across grassland and shrub ecosystems. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of climatic and soil drivers on EMF, which should be considered in ecosystem stability models in response to global climate and land-use change scenarios.

Automated summary

The patterns and processes of ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) across global ecosystems are largely unknown. This study compiled a global dataset and identified a critical global pattern of hump-shaped EMF relationship with mean annual precipitation. It was found that climatic and soil factors jointly drive EMF in low precipitation areas, while climatic factors dominate EMF in high precipitation regions. However, the key driver of EMF differs substantially across dominant ecosystems and precipitation regions.