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Diversity-productivity relationships in forests of the southeastern United States: Leveraging national inventory data and tree functional traits

Numerous studies have evaluated the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, with general trends suggesting a positive relationship. While most studies only use species richness, this study also analyzed how productivity changes with functional diversity and Shannon’s diversity index. Functional diversity gives important context to the examination of biodiversity-productivity relationships due to the direct link between organisms’ functional traits and their role in a given ecosystem. This study used data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database collected in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to estimate plot-level productivity and diversity. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the strength of the relationship between measures of diversity and forest productivity. This study found that species richness had the greatest influence on forest productivity, but it was largely an indirect effect mediated by stand density. This study could be expanded spatially to include more forest types for comparison of trends.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-6418
Date13 May 2022
CreatorsBaach, Elizabeth
PublisherScholars Junction
Source SetsMississippi State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations

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