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      Functional Redundancy Instead of Species Redundancy Determines Community Stability in a Typical Steppe of Inner Mongolia

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          Abstract

          Background

          The redundancy hypothesis predicts that the species redundancy in a plant community enhances community stability. However, numerous studies in recent years questioned the positive correlation between redundancy and stability.

          Methodology

          We explored the relationship between the species redundancy, functional redundancy and community stability in typical steppe grassland in Northern China by sampling grassland vegetation along a gradient of resource availability caused by micro-topography. We aimed to test whether community redundancy enhanced community stability, and to quantify the relative importance of species redundancy and functional redundancy in maintaining community stability.

          Results

          Our results showed that the spatial stability of plant community production increases with increased supply of soil resources, and the functional redundancy instead of species diversity or species redundancy is correlated with the community stability. Our results supported the redundancy hypothesis and have implications for sustainable grassland management.

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          Most cited references10

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          Loss of functional diversity under land use intensification across multiple taxa.

          Dan Flynn, Melanie Gogol-Prokurat, Theresa Nogeire … (2009)
          Land use intensification can greatly reduce species richness and ecosystem functioning. However, species richness determines ecosystem functioning through the diversity and values of traits of species present. Here, we analyze changes in species richness and functional diversity (FD) at varying agricultural land use intensity levels. We test hypotheses of FD responses to land use intensification in plant, bird, and mammal communities using trait data compiled for 1600+ species. To isolate changes in FD from changes in species richness we compare the FD of communities to the null expectations of FD values. In over one-quarter of the bird and mammal communities impacted by agriculture, declines in FD were steeper than predicted by species number. In plant communities, changes in FD were indistinguishable from changes in species richness. Land use intensification can reduce the functional diversity of animal communities beyond changes in species richness alone, potentially imperiling provisioning of ecosystem services.
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            Ecosystem stability and compensatory effects in the Inner Mongolia grassland.

            Yongfei Bai, Xingguo Han, Jianguo Wu … (2004)
            Numerous studies have suggested that biodiversity reduces variability in ecosystem productivity through compensatory effects; that is, a species increases in its abundance in response to the reduction of another in a fluctuating environment. But this view has been challenged on several grounds. Because most studies have been based on artificially constructed grasslands with short duration, long-term studies of natural ecosystems are needed. On the basis of a 24-year study of the Inner Mongolia grassland, here we present three key findings. First, that January-July precipitation is the primary climatic factor causing fluctuations in community biomass production; second, that ecosystem stability (conversely related to variability in community biomass production) increases progressively along the hierarchy of organizational levels (that is, from species to functional group to whole community); and finally, that the community-level stability seems to arise from compensatory interactions among major components at both species and functional group levels. From a hierarchical perspective, our results corroborate some previous findings of compensatory effects. Undisturbed mature steppe ecosystems seem to culminate with high biodiversity, productivity and ecosystem stability concurrently. Because these relationships are correlational, further studies are necessary to verify the causation among these factors. Our study provides new insights for better management and restoration of the rapidly degrading Inner Mongolia grassland.
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              Diversity of interaction types and ecological community stability.

              A Mougi, M. Kondoh (2012)
              Ecological theory predicts that a complex community formed by a number of species is inherently unstable, guiding ecologists to identify what maintains species diversity in nature. Earlier studies often assumed a community with only one interaction type, either an antagonistic, competitive, or mutualistic interaction, leaving open the question of what the diversity of interaction types contributes to the community maintenance. We show theoretically that the multiple interaction types might hold the key to understanding community dynamics. A moderate mixture of antagonistic and mutualistic interactions can stabilize population dynamics. Furthermore, increasing complexity leads to increased stability in a "hybrid" community. We hypothesize that the diversity of species and interaction types may be the essential element of biodiversity that maintains ecological communities.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Zhili He: Role: Editor
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS One
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS ONE
                Journal ID (publisher-id): plos
                Journal ID (pmc): plosone
                Title: PLoS ONE
                Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                ISSN (Electronic): 1932-6203
                Publication date (Electronic): 23 December 2015
                Publication date Collection: 2015
                Volume: 10
                Issue: 12
                Electronic Location Identifier: e0145605
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Ecology, School of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
                [2 ]Sino-US Center for Conservation, Energy, and Sustainability Science, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China
                [3 ]Grassland Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, China
                [4 ]Inner Mongolian Meteorological Bureau, Hohhot, China
                University of Oklahoma, UNITED STATES
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: QZ JN. Performed the experiments: SK WM YD FH XS. Analyzed the data: SK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SK WM XS. Wrote the paper: SK QZ. Funding support and designed the experiments: QZ; funding support and field assistance: YD; language revision: FL.

                Article
                Publisher ID: PONE-D-15-15152
                DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145605
                PMC ID: 4689422
                PubMed ID: 26699133
                SO-VID: 7eda7dbb-6670-4090-a5f6-62d92c4ff002
                Copyright © © 2015 Kang et al
                License:

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

                History
                Date received : 13 April 2015
                Date accepted : 7 December 2015
                Page count
                Figures: 4, Tables: 1, Pages: 11
                Funding
                The National Basic Research Programme of China (Grant no. 31200414); State Key Basic Research Development Programme of China (Grant nos. 2014CB138802); The Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Programme of Higher Education of China (Grant no. 20121501120006). All sources of funding that have supported this work. The funders also contributed in study design (QZ) and data collection (YD).
                Categories
                Subject: Research Article
                Custom metadata
                Data Availability Data underlying the findings of this study can be found in the Supporting Information file S1 Table.

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized
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                ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

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