Identifying seed families with high mixture performance in a subtropical forest biodiversity experiment
Afforestation projects using species mixtures are expected to better support ecosystem services than monoculture plantations. While grassland studies have shown natural selection favoring high-performance genotypes in species-rich communities, this has not been explored in forests. We used seed-family identity (known maternity) to represent genetic identity and investigated how this affected the biomass accumulation (i.e. growth) of individual trees (n = 13 435) along a species richness gradient (1-16 species) and over stand age (9 yr) in a forest biodiversity experiment. We found that among the eight species tested, different seed families responded differently to species richness, some of them growing relatively better in low-diversity plots and others in high-diversity plots. Furthermore, within-species growth variation increased with species richness and stand age, while between-species variation decreased with stand age. These results indicate that seed families within species and their reaction norms along the species richness gradient vary considerably and thus can explain a substantial proportion of the overall variation in tree growth. Our findings suggest that the growth and associated ecosystem services of species-rich mixtures in afforestation projects can be optimized by artificially selecting seed families with high mixture performance in biodiversity experiments.
Authors
- Bernhard Schmid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8430-3214)
- Meredith C. Schuman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3159-3534)
- Walter Durka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6611-2246)
- Goddert von Oheimb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7408-425X)
- Ting Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1145-0723)
- Sofia J. van Moorsel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1947-8971)
- Franca J. Bongers (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9517-4932)
- Yu Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4259-6028)
- Helge Bruelheide (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3135-0356)
- Shan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5294-2249)
- Xiaojuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9292-4432)
- Keping Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9112-5340)
Institutions
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Beijing Botanical Garden (CN)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Institute of Botany (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- China National Botanical Garden
- Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- New Phytologist
- Published
- 2025-04-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70130
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.63
Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Universität Zürich
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association