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The biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship : separating the effects of species richness, from those of species identity and environmental heterogeneity in a tropical tree plantation

This study attempts to expand existing knowledge on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, by studying a four year old tropical tree plantation. The growth of trees coming from monocultures, three species mixtures and six species mixtures was compared. Through multivariate statistical analysis, the variation in tree productivity was partitioned into different components: variation explained by (1) species richness, (2) species identity and (3) the environment. Results reveal that the environment explains the largest portion of variability in tree growth. Moreover, of the small amount of variation explained by diversity, species identity is found to be twice as important then species richness. Of notable significance was the amount of variation explained by the interaction of diversity with the environment.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.101136
Date January 2007
CreatorsHealy, Chrystal.
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Science (Department of Biology.)
Rights© Chrystal Healy, 2007
Relationalephsysno: 002593713, proquestno: AAIMR32715, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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