A trait‐based approach elucidates the synergies and vulnerabilities of ecosystem services in drylands, as well as their decoupling from biodiversity

Several studies have explored the linkages among biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services; however, how biodiversity affects bundles of ecosystem services through ‘ecosystem traits' remains unknown, especially in ecologically fragile drylands. In this study, species‐specific plant traits were correlated to ecosystem services at the community level through transect sampling of shrublands in Northwest China using a trait‐based approach. It revealed some biodiversity–ecosystem service (ES) relationships in drylands and how environmental pressures (sites with high aridity, precipitation seasonality, and soil total salt) and human activities affect them. We found synergistic relationships among ESs at both the species and community levels, and environmental pressures and anthropogenic activities such as cotton cultivation and grazing are important drivers of ES decline at community level. However, environmental pressure did not reduce the alpha diversity such as species richness, Simpson, Shannon–Wiener, Margalef and Pielou index of the shrublands, and the species richness of shrublands was decoupled from the ESs. Our findings highlight the vulnerability and sensitivity of drylands and show that rational human production activities are important for maintaining ESs in drylands.