Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Forests

Forests are among the most biodiverse terrestrial ecosystems, hosting a myriad of tree, shrub, microbial and faunal species that interact to sustain a range of ecosystem processes. Biodiversity in forests encompasses taxonomic richness, functional traits and phylogenetic relationships, all of which influence rates of primary productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon storage and resilience to disturbance. Diverse assemblages of species optimise resource use through complementary uptake of light, water and soil nutrients, while selection effects ensure that highly productive species contribute disproportionately to ecosystem outputs. Functional diversity, which captures variation in traits such as leaf area, wood density and maximum height, underpins the capacity of forest communities to adapt to changing climates and to regulate hydrological cycles. Phylogenetic diversity offers insight into evolutionary constraints on ecosystem function, revealing how deep lineages contribute to carbon sequestration and forest structure. Across climatic gradients, the strength and shape of biodiversity–function relationships may vary, yet the global pattern underscores the importance of conserving species richness not only for its intrinsic value but also for maintaining forest productivity, carbon budgets and the provision of ecosystem services that underpin human well-being.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent analyses across more than one hundred thousand forest plots in North America have revealed that climatic context fundamentally shapes the biodiversity–productivity relationship. In arid regions, positive monotonic relationships between species richness and productivity give way to neutral associations once soil properties and stand density are accounted for. In contrast, mesic forests exhibit a humped relationship, with productivity peaking at intermediate levels of richness before declining where competitive exclusion limits function. Crucially, this work demonstrates that both biotic factors—such as stand age and density—and abiotic factors—such as soil fertility—modulate diversity–function links within climate zones, emphasising the need to balance objectives of maximising carbon capture with those of conserving biodiversity, particularly in temperate and humid regions.

Research from all publishers

Work in Southeast Asia has shown that subtle altitudinal changes can drive marked differences in canopy composition, wood density and above-ground carbon density at the landscape scale. By combining airborne laser scanning with field inventories, researchers demonstrated that variations in microtopography control soil hydrology and nutrient availability, leading to predictable shifts in tree architecture and biomass distribution. In subtropical China, a large network of permanent plots revealed that while tree species richness enhances wood production, stand structure attributes—particularly density and age—exert an even greater influence on productivity. This multi-factor analysis highlighted that management practices targeting optimal stand density and the retention of structural complexity may amplify the role of biodiversity in carbon sequestration. Earlier efforts in Europe established that local-scale wood production increases with tree species richness once climatic and edaphic drivers are controlled, providing some of the first continental-scale evidence of positive biodiversity effects in natural forests and reinforcing the inclusion of diversity metrics in forest policy frameworks.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Forests publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in forests across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Biodiversity: The variety of life at genetic, species and ecosystem levels within a defined area.

Primary productivity: The rate at which plants convert solar energy into biomass through photosynthesis.

Functional diversity: The range and value distribution of species traits that influence ecosystem processes.

Phylogenetic diversity: A measure of evolutionary differences among species in a community.

Carbon sequestration: The long-term storage of carbon in forests, soils and vegetation.

Selection effects: The influence of dominant, high-performing species on ecosystem functioning.

Complementarity: Resource-use efficiency arising from niche differentiation among coexisting species.

References

1. Topography shapes the structure, composition and function of tropical forest landscapes. Ecology Letters (2018).
2. Disentangling Biodiversity and Climatic Determinants of Wood Production. PLOS ONE (2013).
3. Effects of stand age, richness and density on productivity in subtropical forests in China. Journal of Ecology (2019).
4. Impacts of climate on the biodiversity-productivity relationship in natural forests. Nature Communications (2018).