Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 371, Issue 1694, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0279
Keywords
beta-diversity; niche complementarity; energy flux; functional diversity; litter invertebrates; multitrophic
Categories
Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the framework of the collaborative German Indonesian research project [CRC990]
- Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony
- DFG Priority Programme 'Infrastructure-Biodiversity-Exploratories' [1374, BR 2315/7-2]
- German Centre for integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig - German Research Foundation [FZT 118]
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Predicting ecosystem functioning at large spatial scales rests on our ability to scale up from local plots to landscapes, but this is highly contingent on our understanding of how functioning varies through space. Such an understanding has been hampered by a strong experimental focus of biodiversity ecosystem functioning research restricted to small spatial scales. To address this limitation, we investigate the drivers of spatial variation in multitrophic energy flux a measure of ecosystem functioning in complex communities at the landscape scale. We use a structural equation modelling framework based on distance matrices to test how spatial and environmental distances drive variation in community energy flux via four mechanisms: species composition, species richness, niche complementarity and biomass. We found that in both a tropical and a temperate study region, geographical and environmental distance indirectly influence species richness and biomass, with clear evidence that these are the dominant mechanisms explaining variability in community energy flux over spatial and environmental gradients. Our results reveal that species composition and trait variability may become redundant in predicting ecosystem functioning at the landscape scale. Instead, we demonstrate that species richness and total biomass may best predict rates of ecosystem functioning at larger spatial scales.
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