title: Low multifunctional redundancy of soil fungal diversity at multiple scales.
abstract: Theory suggests that biodiversity might help sustain multiple ecosystem functions. To evaluate possible biodiversity-multifunctionality relationships in a natural setting, we considered different spatial scales of diversity metrics for soil fungi in the northern forests of Japan. We found that multifunctionality increased with increasing local species richness, suggesting a limited degree of multifunctional redundancy. This diversity-multifunctionality relationship was independent of the compositional uniqueness of each community. However, we still found the importance of community composition, because there was a positive correlation between community dissimilarity and multifunctional dissimilarity across the landscape. This result suggests that functional redundancy can further decrease when spatial variations in identities of both species and functions are simultaneously considered at larger spatial scales. We speculate that different scales of diversity could provide multiple levels of insurance against the loss of functioning if high-levels of local species diversity and compositional variation across locations are both maintained. Alternatively, making species assemblages depauperate may result in the loss of multifunctionality.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 240-8501, Japan.
authors.forename: Akira S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA.
authors.forename: Forest
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Isbell
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 240-8501, Japan.
authors.forename: Saori
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fujii
authors.affiliation: Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Otoineppu 438, Otoineppu, Hokkaido, 098-2501, Japan.
authors.forename: Kobayashi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Makoto
authors.affiliation: Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, 520-2113, Japan.
authors.forename: Shunsuke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Matsuoka
authors.affiliation: Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, 520-2113, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Osono
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D017753:Ecosystem; D005658:Fungi / Q000502:physiology*; D007564:Japan; D012988:Soil Microbiology
keywords: Belowground processes; biodiversity-ecosystem functioning; compositional characteristics; ecosystem multifunctionality; forest biodiversity; functional redundancy; multifunctional dissimilarity; scale dependency; species importance