title: Functional dominance rather than taxonomic diversity and functional diversity mainly affects community aboveground biomass in the Inner Mongolia grassland.
abstract: The relationship between biodiversity and productivity has been a hot topic in ecology. However, the relative importance of taxonomic diversity and functional characteristics (including functional dominance and functional diversity) in maintaining community productivity and the underlying mechanisms (including selection and complementarity effects) of the relationship between diversity and community productivity have been widely controversial. In this study, 194 sites were surveyed in five grassland types along a precipitation gradient in the Inner Mongolia grassland of China. The relationships between taxonomic diversity (species richness and the Shannon-Weaver index), functional dominance (the community-weighted mean of four plant traits), functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy), and community aboveground biomass were analyzed. The results showed that (1) taxonomic diversity, functional dominance, functional diversity, and community aboveground biomass all increased from low to high precipitation grassland types; (2) there were significant positive linear relationships between taxonomic diversity, functional dominance, functional diversity, and community aboveground biomass; (3) the effect of functional characteristics on community aboveground biomass is greater than that of taxonomic diversity; and (4) community aboveground biomass depends on the community-weighted mean plant height, which explained 57.1% of the variation in the community aboveground biomass. Our results suggested that functional dominance rather than taxonomic diversity and functional diversity mainly determines community productivity and that the selection effect plays a dominant role in maintaining the relationship between biodiversity and community productivity in the Inner Mongolia grassland.
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment Inner Mongolia University Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3489-1417
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Planning University at Albany State University of New York Albany NY USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Buyantuev
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment Inner Mongolia University Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Frank Yonghong
authors.initials: FY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Biology Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta GA USA.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment Inner Mongolia University Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Jianming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Grassland Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment Inner Mongolia University Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Sarula
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: School of Ecology and Environment Inner Mongolia University Hohhot China.
authors.forename: Wenjing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ma
keywords: Inner Mongolia grassland; complementarity effect; functional diversity; functional dominance; selection effect; taxonomic diversity