Abstract
Recent empirical and theoretical approaches have called for an understanding of the processes underpinning ecosystem service provision. Environmental gradients have shown effects on key plant functional traits that subsequently explain ecosystem properties of several systems. However, little is known concerning how associations between plant functional traits, including both below- and aboveground plant components, predict ecosystem properties and independently measured final ecosystem services. Here, we modeled (1) the responses of the leaf and plant economics spectrum, Plant size axis, and root growth to environmental gradients and (2) how associations between plant functional traits explain trade-offs and synergies between multiple ecosystem properties and final services. Forty-four plots were studied in a coastal marsh landscape of the German North Sea Coast. We used a partial least square structural equation model approach to test the hypothesized model. We found (1) a negative covariation between plant traits pertaining to a size axis and traits explaining both plant growth (roots and stems) and the leaf economics spectrum; (2) this trade-off responded significantly to the land use gradient and nutrient availability, which were both strongly driven by the groundwater gradient; (3) this trade-off explained an initial major trade-off between carbon stocks, at one extreme of the axis, and both the habitat value to conserve endangered plants and forage production for meat and dairy products at the other extreme. However, a secondary trade-off between nature conservation value and forage production, explained by a trade-off between leaf economics spectrum and plant growth in response to the land use intensity gradient, was also found.
Highlights
Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems
One direct pathway between PLANT GROWTH (i.e., co-variation of specific root length (SRL) and specific stem length (SSL) indicating both rapid root and stem growth (Reich 2014; Freschet et al 2010)) and endangered plants was added to improve the model performance, following theoretical justification (i.e., as plant communities with higher SRL and SSL might be associated with a resource acquisition strategy (Paula & Pausas 2011) or a vegetative strategy initiated by competition for survival (Moles & Westoby 2006)
The results revealed an additional trade-off between plant functional traits: High values of specific leaf area (SLA) were negatively associated with endangered plant species, and PLANT GROWTH was positively associated with endangered plant species (Fig. 3)
Summary
Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems. For achieving some of these benefits, strong landscape modifications are deliberately exerted (MEA, 2005). Research approaches using land cover data as proxies for the ES supply are increasingly being used to identify spatial ES trade-offs and co-occurrence of ES, namely ES bundles, i.e., ES bundles have been defined as sets of ecosystem services that repeatedly appear together across space or time (Raudsepp-Hearne et al 2010). Mechanistic and process-based approaches are emerging as promising tools to understand and predict changes in the provision of biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services and assess the roots of ecosystem service trade-offs (Bennett et al 2009, Duncan et al 2015). Vegetation is an essential target of research addressing the connection between biodiversity-ecosystem functioning-ecosystem services (B-EF-ES) (Isbell et al 2011, Duncan et al 2015), and it is key for the identification of the relationships between ES and several trophic levels (Lavorel et al 2013)
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