Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America
Abstract Biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments have established generally positive species richness-productivity relationships in plots of single ecosystem types, typically grassland or forest. However, it remains unclear whether these findings apply in real-world landscapes that resemble a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Communications Earth & Environment |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02000-1 |
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| author | Sarah Mayor Florian Altermatt Thomas W. Crowther Iris Hordijk Simon Landauer Jacqueline Oehri Merin Reji Chacko Michael E. Schaepman Bernhard Schmid Pascal A. Niklaus |
| author_facet | Sarah Mayor Florian Altermatt Thomas W. Crowther Iris Hordijk Simon Landauer Jacqueline Oehri Merin Reji Chacko Michael E. Schaepman Bernhard Schmid Pascal A. Niklaus |
| author_sort | Sarah Mayor |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments have established generally positive species richness-productivity relationships in plots of single ecosystem types, typically grassland or forest. However, it remains unclear whether these findings apply in real-world landscapes that resemble a heterogeneous mosaic of different ecosystem and plant types that interact through biotic and abiotic processes. Here, we show that landscape-level diversity, measured as number of land-cover types (different ecosystems) per 250×250 m, is positively related to landscape-wide remotely-sensed primary production across all of North America, covering 16 of 18 ecoregions of Earth. At higher landscape diversity, productivity was temporally more stable, and 20-year greening trends were accelerated. These effects occurred independent of local species diversity, suggesting emergent mechanisms at hitherto neglected levels of biological organization. Specifically, mechanisms related to interactions among land-cover types unfold at the scale of entire landscapes, similar to, but not necessarily resulting from, interactions between species within single ecosystems. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e418cc128e7743d287d8ff7b67566b27 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2662-4435 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Earth & Environment |
| spelling | doaj-art-e418cc128e7743d287d8ff7b67566b272025-01-19T12:40:05ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Earth & Environment2662-44352025-01-01611910.1038/s43247-025-02000-1Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North AmericaSarah Mayor0Florian Altermatt1Thomas W. Crowther2Iris Hordijk3Simon Landauer4Jacqueline Oehri5Merin Reji Chacko6Michael E. Schaepman7Bernhard Schmid8Pascal A. Niklaus9Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichDepartment of Environmental System Sciences, ETHZ, Universitätstrasse 16Department of Environmental System Sciences, ETHZ, Universitätstrasse 16Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichRemote Sensing Laboratories, Department of Geography, University of ZurichDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of ZurichAbstract Biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments have established generally positive species richness-productivity relationships in plots of single ecosystem types, typically grassland or forest. However, it remains unclear whether these findings apply in real-world landscapes that resemble a heterogeneous mosaic of different ecosystem and plant types that interact through biotic and abiotic processes. Here, we show that landscape-level diversity, measured as number of land-cover types (different ecosystems) per 250×250 m, is positively related to landscape-wide remotely-sensed primary production across all of North America, covering 16 of 18 ecoregions of Earth. At higher landscape diversity, productivity was temporally more stable, and 20-year greening trends were accelerated. These effects occurred independent of local species diversity, suggesting emergent mechanisms at hitherto neglected levels of biological organization. Specifically, mechanisms related to interactions among land-cover types unfold at the scale of entire landscapes, similar to, but not necessarily resulting from, interactions between species within single ecosystems.https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02000-1 |
| spellingShingle | Sarah Mayor Florian Altermatt Thomas W. Crowther Iris Hordijk Simon Landauer Jacqueline Oehri Merin Reji Chacko Michael E. Schaepman Bernhard Schmid Pascal A. Niklaus Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America Communications Earth & Environment |
| title | Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America |
| title_full | Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America |
| title_fullStr | Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America |
| title_full_unstemmed | Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America |
| title_short | Landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in North America |
| title_sort | landscape diversity promotes landscape functioning in north america |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02000-1 |
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