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Tree diversity promotes functional dissimilarity and maintains functional richness despite species loss in predator assemblages.

Abstract：

:The effects of species loss on ecosystems depend on the community's functional diversity (FD). However, how FD responds to environmental changes is poorly understood. This applies particularly to higher trophic levels, which regulate many ecosystem processes and are strongly affected by human-induced environmental changes. We analyzed how functional richness (FRic), evenness (FEve), and divergence (FDiv) of important generalist predators-epigeic spiders-are affected by changes in woody plant species richness, plant phylogenetic diversity, and stand age in highly diverse subtropical forests in China. FEve and FDiv of spiders increased with plant richness and stand age. FRic remained on a constant level despite decreasing spider species richness with increasing plant species richness. Plant phylogenetic diversity had no consistent effect on spider FD. The results contrast with the negative effect of diversity on spider species richness and suggest that functional redundancy among spiders decreased with increasing plant richness through non-random species loss. Moreover, increasing functional dissimilarity within spider assemblages with increasing plant richness indicates that the abundance distribution of predators in functional trait space affects ecological functions independent of predator species richness or the available trait space. While plant diversity is generally hypothesized to positively affect predators, our results only support this hypothesis for FD-and here particularly for trait distributions within the overall functional trait space-and not for patterns in species richness. Understanding the way predator assemblages affect ecosystem functions in such highly diverse, natural ecosystems thus requires explicit consideration of FD and its relationship with species richness.

journal_name

Oecologia

journal_title

Oecologia

authors

Schuldt A,Bruelheide H,Durka W,Michalski SG,Purschke O,Assmann T

doi

10.1007/s00442-013-2790-9

subject

Has Abstract

pub_date

2014-02-01 00:00:00

pages

533-43

issue

eissn

0029-8549

issn

1432-1939

journal_volume

174

pub_type

杂志文章

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Tree diversity promotes functional dissimilarity and maintains functional richness despite species loss in predator assemblages.