Abstract
AbstractNatural and managed ecosystems provide a variety of ecological, economic, and cultural benefits; yet most have been altered by human activity such that they exhibit deficits in both biodiversity and functionality. Identifying factors accelerating the recovery of key species and associated functions in degraded systems is therefore a global priority. We tested the hypotheses that explicitly incorporating biodiversity into restoration design will lead to greater ecosystem function and that positive effects of diversity will strengthen over time due to an increase in the importance of complementarity relative to selection effects. We did this by manipulating salt marsh plant species richness across a tidal elevation gradient as part of a coastal wetland restoration project in southern California. Overall, diversity enhanced biomass accumulation in experimental plots, with the magnitude of the effect strengthening from one to three years post‐restoration due to a combination of decreasing performance in monocultures and increasing performance in multispecies mixtures over time. Positive diversity effects were initially due exclusively to selection, as mixtures were dominated by species also exhibiting high performance in monoculture, although the identity of the highest performing species varied across tidal elevations and over time. By the end of the study, complementarity, indicative of niche partitioning and/or positive interactions among species, contributed to productivity at least as much as selection effects. Our study provides real‐world support for a recent theoretical model predicting strong positive biodiversity effects when functionally different species coexist in a heterogeneous landscape. Incorporating biodiversity into restoration designs can result in net gains in ecosystem function especially in low diversity systems, yet shorter experiments lacking broad environmental and species trait variability may both underestimate the strength of and misidentify the mechanisms underlying positive diversity effects.
Highlights
Natural and managed ecosystems provide a variety of ecological, economic, and cultural benefits to humans that include food, water, fuel, disease control, and recreation (Costanza et al 1997, 2014)
Complementarity: niche partitioning and/or positive interactions among species that result in multiple species performing better in mixtures than they do in monoculture
We test the hypotheses that (1) explicitly incorporating biodiversity into restoration design will enhance ecosystem functioning relative to single-species plantings; (2) positive effects of biodiversity will strengthen over time; and (3) the importance of complementarity relative to selection effects will increase, as predicted when high environmental variation co-occurs with high trait variability (Hodapp et al 2016). We did this by manipulating salt marsh plant species richness across a tidal elevation gradient as part of a coastal wetland restoration project in southern California
Summary
Natural and managed ecosystems provide a variety of ecological, economic, and cultural benefits to humans that include food, water, fuel, disease control, and recreation (Costanza et al 1997, 2014). Many ecosystem functions and services are positively related to local biodiversity v www.esajournals.org. August 2021 v Volume 12(8) v Article e03664. Biodiversity: the variety of genes, species, or functional traits in an ecosystem. Complementarity: niche partitioning and/or positive interactions among species that result in multiple species performing better in mixtures than they do in monoculture. Ecosystem functions: aggregate biological processes that control the fluxes of energy, nutrients, and organic matter through an environment. Ecosystem services: biological processes considered to have value to humanity
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
