Positive feedbacks and alternative stable states in forest leaf types

Abstract

The emergence of alternative stable states in forest systems has significant implications for the functioning and structure of the terrestrial biosphere, yet empirical evidence remains scarce. Here, we combine global forest biodiversity observations and simulations to test for alternative stable states in the presence of evergreen and deciduous forest types. We reveal a bimodal distribution of forest leaf types across temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere that cannot be explained by the environment alone, suggesting signatures of alternative forest states. Moreover, we empirically demonstrate the existence of positive feedbacks in tree growth, recruitment and mortality, with trees having 4–43% higher growth rates, 14–17% higher survival rates and 4–7 times higher recruitment rates when they are surrounded by trees of their own leaf type. Simulations show that the observed positive feedbacks are necessary and sufficient to generate alternative forest states, which also lead to dependency on history (hysteresis) during ecosystem transition from evergreen to deciduous forests and vice versa. We identify hotspots of bistable forest types in evergreen-deciduous ecotones, which are likely driven by soil-related positive feedbacks. These findings are integral to predicting the distribution of forest biomes, and aid to our understanding of biodiversity, carbon turnover, and terrestrial climate feedbacks.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Zou, Yibiao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 Zohner, Constantin M. Averill, Colin Ma, Haozhi Merder, Julian Berdugo, Miguel Bialic-Murphy, Lalasia Mo, Lidong Brun, Philipp Zimmermann, Niklaus E. Liang, Jingjing de-Miguel, Sergio Nabuurs, Gert-Jan Reich, Peter B. Niinements, Ulo Abegg, Meinrad Adou Yao, Yves C. Alberti, Giorgio Almeyda Zambrano, Angelica M. Alvarado, Braulio Vilchez Alvarez-Dávila, Esteban Alvarez-Loayza, Patricia Alves, Luciana F. Ammer, Christian Antón-Fernández, Clara Araujo-Murakami, Alejandro Arroyo, Luzmila Avitabile, Valerio Aymard, Gerardo A. Baker, Timothy R. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3251-1679 Bałazy, Radomir Banki, Olaf Barroso, Jorcely G. Bastian, Meredith L. Bastin, JeanFrancois Birigazzi, Luca Birnbaum, Philippe Bitariho, Robert Boeckx, Pascal Bongers, Frans Bouriaud, Olivier Brancalion, Pedro H. S. Brandl, Susanne Brearley, Francis Q. Brienen, Roel Broadbent, Eben N. Bruelheide, Helge Bussotti, Filippo Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto César, Ricardo G. Cesljar, Goran Chazdon, Robin Chen, Han Y. H. Chisholm, Chelsea Cho, Hyunkook Cienciala, Emil Clark, Connie Clark, David Colletta, Gabriel D. Coomes, David A. Cornejo Valverde, Fernando Corral-Rivas, José J. Crim, Philip M. Cumming, Jonathan R. Dahlgren, Jonas Dayanandan, Selvadurai de Gasper, André L. Decuyper, Mathieu Derroire, Géraldine DeVries, Ben Djordjevic, Ilija Dolezal, Jiri Dourdain, Aurélie Engone Obiang, Nestor Laurier Enquist, Brian J. Eyre, Teresa J. Fandohan, Adandé Belarmain Fayle, Tom M. Feldpausch, Ted R. Ferreira, Leandro V. Finér, Leena Fischer, Markus Fletcher, Christine Fridmann, Jonas Frizzera, Lorenzo Gamarra, Javier G.P. Gianelle, Damiano Glick, Henry B. Harris, David J. Hector, Andrew Hemp, Andreas Hengeveld, Geerten Hérault, Bruno Herbohn, John L. Herold, Martin Hillers, Annika Honorio Coronado, Eurídice N. Hui, Cang Ibanez, Thomas T. Iêda, Amaral Imai, Nobuo Jagodziński, Andrzej M. Jaroszewicz, Bogdan Johannsen, Vivian Kvist Joly, Carlos A. Jucker, Tommaso Jung, Ilbin Kändler, Gerald Karminov, Viktor Kartawinata, Kuswata Kearsley, Elizabeth Kenfack, David Kennard, Deborah K. Kepfer-Rojas, Sebastian Keppel, Gunnar Khan, Mohammed Latif Killeen, Timothy J. Kim, Hyun Seok Kitayama, Kanehiro Köhl, Michael Korjus, Henn Kraxner, Florian Laarmann, Diana Lang, Mait Lewis, Simon L. Lu, Huicui Lukina, Natalia V. Maitner, Brian S. Malhi, Yadvinder Marcon, Eric Marimon, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon-Junior, Ben Hur Marshall, Andrew R. Martin, Emanuel H. Kucher, Dmitry Meave, Jorge A. Melo-Cruz, Omar Mendoza, Casimiro Merow, Cory Monteagudo Mendoza, Abel Moreno, Vanessa S. Mukul, Sharif A. Mundhenk, Philip Nava-Miranda, María Guadalupe Neill, David Neldner, Victor J. Nevenic, Radovan V. Ngugi, Michael R. Niklaus, Pascal A. Oleksyn, Jacek Ontikov, Petr Ortiz-Malavasi, Edgar Pan, Yude Paquette, Alain Parada-Gutierrez, Alexander Parfenova, Elena I. Park, Minjee Parren, Marc Parthasarathy, Narayanaswamy Peri, Pablo L. Pfautsch, Sebastian Phillips, Oliver L. Picard, Nicolas Piedade, Maria Teresa T.F. Piotto, Daniel Pitman, Nigel C.A. Polo, Irina Poorter, Lourens Poulsen, Axel D. Poulsen, John R. Pretzsch, Hans Ramirez Arevalo, Freddy Ratcliffe, Sophia Restrepo-Correa, Zorayda Rodeghiero, Mirco Rolim, Samir G. Roopsind, Anand Rovero, Francesco Ruiz-Benito, Paloma Rutishauser, Ervan Saikia, Purabi Salas-Eljatib, Christian Saner, Philippe Schall, Peter Schelhaas, Mart-Jan Schepaschenko, Dmitry Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael Schmid, Bernhard Schöngart, Jochen Searle, Eric B. Seben, Vladimír Serra-Diaz, Josep M. Sheil, Douglas Shvidenko, Anatoly Z. SilvaEspejo, Javier E. Silveira, Marcos Singh, James Sist, Plinio Slik, Ferry Sonké, Bonaventure Souza, Alexandre F. Stanislaw, Miscicki Stereńczak, Krzysztof J. Svenning, Jens-Christian Svoboda, Miroslav Swanepoel, Ben Targhetta, Natalia Tchebakova, Nadja ter Steege, Hans Thomas, Raquel Tikhonova, Elena Umunay, Peter M. Usoltsev, Vladimir A. Valencia, Renato Valladares, Fernando van der Plas, Fons Van Do, Tran van Nuland, Michael E. Vasquez, Rodolfo M. Verbeeck, Hans Viana, Helder Vibrans, Alexander C. Vieira, Simone von Gadow, Klaus Wang, Hua-Feng Watson, James V. Werner, Gijsbert D.A. Westerlund, Bertil Wiser, Susan K. Wittmann, Florian Woell, Hannsjoerg Wortel, Verginia Zagt, Roderik Zavala, Miguel A. Zawiła-Niedźwiecki, Tomasz Zhang, Chunyu Zhao, Xiuhai Zhou, Mo Zhu, Zhi-Xin Zo-Bi, Irie C. Crowther, Thomas W.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/.
Dates:	Published: 31 May 2024 Published (online): 31 May 2024 Accepted: 9 May 2024
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	03 Mar 2025 15:56
Last Modified:	03 Mar 2025 16:24
Published Version:	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48676-5
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Portfolio
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41467-024-48676-5
Related URLs:	Dataset
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:211788