How much biomass do plant communities pack per unit volume?

PeerJ

Guillaume Rheault¹  Raphaël Proulx¹  Ian Seiferling¹  Irene Torrecilla Roca¹  Charles A. Martin¹  Louis Desrochers¹  Laurianne Bonin¹ 

[1] Canada Research Chair in Ecological Integrity, Département des Sciences de l’Environnement, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada;

关键词: Packing density;    Biodiversity;    Plant geometry;    Ecosystem;    Self-thinning;    Species coexistence;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.849

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Aboveground production in terrestrial plant communities is commonly expressed in amount of carbon, or biomass, per unit surface. Alternatively, expressing production per unit volume allows the comparison of communities by their fundamental capacities in packing carbon. In this work we reanalyzed published data from more than 900 plant communities across nine ecosystems to show that standing dry biomass per unit volume (biomass packing) consistently averages around 1 kg/m3 and rarely exceeds 5 kg/m3 across ecosystem types. Furthermore, we examined how empirical relationships between aboveground production and plant species richness are modified when standing biomass is expressed per unit volume rather than surface. We propose that biomass packing emphasizes species coexistence mechanisms and may be an indicator of resource use efficiency in plant communities.

【 授权许可】

Unknown