English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

Resilience of Amazon forests emerges from plant trait diversity

Authors
/persons/resource/Boris.Sakschewski

Sakschewski,  Boris
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Werner.von.Bloh

von Bloh,  Werner
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

/persons/resource/Alice.Boit

Boit,  Alice
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Poorter,  L.
External Organizations;

Peña-Claros,  M.
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Jens.Heinke

Heinke,  Jens
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Joshi,  J.
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Kirsten.Thonicke

Thonicke,  Kirsten
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PIKpublic
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Sakschewski, B., von Bloh, W., Boit, A., Poorter, L., Peña-Claros, M., Heinke, J., Joshi, J., Thonicke, K. (2016): Resilience of Amazon forests emerges from plant trait diversity. - Nature Climate Change, 6, 11, 1032-1036.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3109


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_21053
Abstract
Climate change threatens ecosystems worldwide, yet their potential future resilience remains largely unquantified1. In recent years many studies have shown that biodiversity, and in particular functional diversity, can enhance ecosystem resilience by providing a higher response diversity2,3,4,5. So far these insights have been mostly neglected in large-scale projections of ecosystem responses to climate change6. Here we show that plant trait diversity, as a key component of functional diversity, can have a strikingly positive effect on the Amazon forests’ biomass under future climate change. Using a terrestrial biogeochemical model that simulates diverse forest communities on the basis of individual tree growth7, we show that plant trait diversity may enable the Amazon forests to adjust to new climate conditions via a process of ecological sorting, protecting the Amazon’s carbon sink function. Therefore, plant trait diversity, and biodiversity in general, should be considered in large-scale ecosystem projections and be included as an integral part of climate change research and policy.