Functional-structural plant models to boost understanding of complementarity in light capture and use in mixed-species forests

Abstract

Positive relationships between tree species richness and productivity have been observed in both natural and experimental forests. Complementarity in resource capture and use has been put forward as one important mechanism for the positive richness-productivity relationship. However, inference that complementarity drives this relationship is often based on statistical modelling or the use of functional diversity indices and these methods do not consider resource capture or use among individuals from various species within a community. Here I introduce functional-structural plant models as tool to study species complementarity in light capture and use in mixed-species forests. These models consider the interplay between structure, physiology and the environment in 3D and scale from organ-specific characteristics to tree and community performance. Functional-structural plant models that represent mixed-species forests have therefore the potential to disentangle the effects of structural and functional differences among species on community light capture and use using the 3D setting of the forest. Knowing how community light capture and use in mixed-species forests depends on structural and functional differences among species will shed light on the potential of species complementarity in light capture and use to drive species richness-productivity relationships.