Assessing biotic and abiotic effects on forest productivity in three temperate forests

Abstract

It is well understood that biotic and abiotic variables influence forest productivity. However, in regard to temperate forests, the relative contributions of the aforementioned drivers to biomass demographic processes (i.e., the growth rates of the survivors and recruits) have not received a great deal of attention. Thus, this study focused on the identification of the relative influencing effects of biotic and abiotic variables in the demographic biomass processes of temperate forests.This study was conducted in the Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve, in northeastern China. Based on the observational data collected from three 5.2-hectare forest plots, the annual above-ground biomass (AGB) increment (productivity) of the surviving trees, recruits, and the total tree community (survivors + recruits) were estimated. Then, the changes in the forest productivity in response to biotic variables (including species diversity, structural diversity, and density variables) along with abiotic variables (including topographic and soil variables) were evaluated using linear mixed-effect models.This study determined that the biotic variables regulated the variabilities in productivity. Density variables were the most critical drivers of the annual AGB increments of the surviving trees and total tree community. Structural diversity enhanced the annual AGB increments of the recruits, but diminished the annual AGB increments of the surviving trees and the total tree community. Species diversity and abiotic variables did not have impacts on the productivity in the examined forest plots.The results highlighted the important roles of forest density and structural diversity in the biomass demographic processes of temperate forests. The surviving and recruit trees were found to respond differently to the biotic variables, which suggested that the asymmetric competition had shaped the productivity dynamics in forests. Therefore, the findings emphasized the need to consider the demographic processes of forest productivity to better understand the functions of forests.

Keywords: biodiversity and productivity relationships; biotic effects; forest productivity; species diversity; stand density; structural diversity.