Steur, G, ter Steege, H, Verburg, RW et al. (15 more authors) (2022) Relationships between species richness and ecosystem services in Amazonian forests strongly influenced by biogeographical strata and forest types. Scientific Reports, 12 (1). 5960-. ISSN 2045-2322
Abstract
Despite increasing attention for relationships between species richness and ecosystem services, for tropical forests such relationships are still under discussion. Contradicting relationships have been reported concerning carbon stock, while little is known about relationships concerning timber stock and the abundance of non-timber forest product producing plant species (NTFP abundance). Using 151 1-ha plots, we related tree and arborescent palm species richness to carbon stock, timber stock and NTFP abundance across the Guiana Shield, and using 283 1-ha plots, to carbon stock across all of Amazonia. We analysed how environmental heterogeneity influenced these relationships, assessing differences across and within multiple forest types, biogeographic regions and subregions. Species richness showed significant relationships with all three ecosystem services, but relationships differed between forest types and among biogeographical strata. We found that species richness was positively associated to carbon stock in all biogeographical strata. This association became obscured by variation across biogeographical regions at the scale of Amazonia, resembling a Simpson’s paradox. By contrast, species richness was weakly or not significantly related to timber stock and NTFP abundance, suggesting that species richness is not a good predictor for these ecosystem services. Our findings illustrate the importance of environmental stratification in analysing biodiversity-ecosystem services relationships.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/B503384/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/F005806/1 Met Office P109672 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/N004655/1 Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation N/A EU - European Union 291585 (ERC 2011 ADG) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Apr 2022 12:35 |
Last Modified: | 26 Apr 2022 12:35 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41598-022-09786-6 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186049 |