Shedding light on relationships between plant diversity and tropical forest ecosystem services across spatial scales and plot sizes

Gijs Steur,René W Verburg,Martin J Wassen,Pita A Verweij

doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101107

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the state of our knowledge of relationships between plant diversity and tropical forests ecosystem services. We systematically reviewed the empirical evidence of relationships between three ecosystem services: carbon stock and sequestration, timber provisioning and non-timber forest product (NTFP) provisioning, and three dimensions of plant diversity: taxonomic, functional and structural. We carried out meta-analyses to assess their validity across spatial scales and plot sizes. We found that indicators of all three dimensions of plant diversity have reported relationships with at least two of the studied ecosystem services, but there has been limited and inconsistent use of plant diversity indicators and little attention for relationships with timber and NTFP services. Nevertheless, we found that tree species richness showed robust significant positive correlations with carbon stock across the tropics, and that the geographical extent of the study area had a significant negative effect on the strength of this relationship, where the strength of the relationship decreased with increasing geographical extent. This paper reveals a knowledge gap for services other than carbon stock and shows that at local to regional spatial scales, synergies can be achieved between policies focused on biodiversity conservation and maintenance of carbon stocks.

Highlights

There is increasing concern that the biodiversity decline caused by the ongoing global degradation of ecosystems drives and accelerates the loss of ecosystem services, thereby threatening human wellbeing and worsening the conditions for life on Earth (Cardinale et al, 2012; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Rockström et al, 2009)
This paper focuses on two questions: 1) to what extent is there empirical evidence for relationships between tropical forest ecosystem services and plant diversity and, 2) to what extent are these relationships robust across spatial scales and plot sizes
We focused our review on the services of carbon stock and sequestration, timber provisioning and non-timber forest product (NTFP) provisioning, as initial scoping showed that plant diversity relationships are relatively well-documented for these services and because they are all related to above ground biomass, which facilitates comparison

Summary

Introduction

There is increasing concern that the biodiversity decline caused by the ongoing global degradation of ecosystems drives and accelerates the loss of ecosystem services, thereby threatening human wellbeing and worsening the conditions for life on Earth (Cardinale et al, 2012; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Rockström et al, 2009). Ecosystem services are being put forward by policymakers, academia and non-governmental organizations as the focal point for conservation efforts (IPBES, 2019; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Central to this idea are the presumed positive relationships between ecosystem services and biodiversity; biodiversity has been considered to be either the basis for ecosystem services provisioning or a service in itself, and may show covariation with other ecosystem services (Díaz et al, 2005; Mace, Norris, & Fitter, 2012). Preservation of ecosystem services would help to safeguard human wellbeing and the conditions of life on earth, and aid the conservation of biodiversity. There is insufficient knowledge on how spatial aspects, such as spatial scale and plot size affect the biodiversity-ecosystem service relationships (Bennett et al, 2015; Cardinale et al, 2012; Isbell et al, 2015; McGill, 2010; Scheiner et al, 2011)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion