Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: exploring large-scale patterns in mainland China

doi:10.3832/ifor0627-005

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: exploring large-scale patterns in mainland China

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 5, Issue 5, Pages 230-234 (2012)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor0627-005
Published: Oct 02, 2012 - Copyright © 2012 SISEF

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Relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are vital to understand ecosystem properties, and have frequently been addressed in small-scale studies. However, interactions and changes differ at large scales, and should be similarly evaluated to monitor biodiversity and ecosystem functional alterations. In the present study, Mainland China was divided into 241 quadrats of 2° latitude by 2° longitude. Ecosystem function was comprehensively assessed using three indicator variables in each quadrat, primary productivity, bird species richness, and relative humidity. Relationships between each ecosystem function variable were regressed against seed plant species richness. All three indicators exhibited the same change model, a linear model when plant species richness was under 5.000 species, and a hump-back/quadratic model when seed plant richness was over 5.000 species, with an increase in seed plant species richness at a larger scale.

Keywords

Ecosystem function, Seed plants, Species richness, Model, China

Authors’ address

(1)

College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, 100875 Beijing (China)

(2)

College of Environment and Resources, Shanxi University, 030006 Taiyuan (China)

Corresponding author

J-T Zhang
Zhangjt@bnu.edu.cn

Citation

Zhang J-T, Wang C (2012). Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: exploring large-scale patterns in mainland China. iForest 5: 230-234. - doi: 10.3832/ifor0627-005

Academic Editor

Marco Borghetti

Paper history

Received: Apr 14, 2012
Accepted: Jul 20, 2012

First online: Oct 02, 2012
Publication Date: Oct 30, 2012
Publication Time: 2.47 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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