Abstract
Watersheds are natural units and meta-ecosystems of the earth’s land surface providing multiple ecological functions. However, little is known about the biodiversity-ecological multifunctionality relationships of watersheds, particularly regarding how these relationships scale to large and complex landscapes. Here, we explore the impact of forest tree species richness on the ecological multifunctionality of watersheds in terms of carbon sequestration, carbon storage, water supply, water regulation, and soil conservation, by utilizing integrated ground-sourced forest inventory datasets comprising 846 forest watersheds from the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, the Global Streamflow Indices and Metadata Archive, and remote sensing data products. We find a consistently positive relationship between forest tree species richness and watershed ecological multifunctionality by accounting for factors such as forest structural characteristics and environmental conditions. Furthermore, we find that this biodiversity-multifunctionality link is dependent on spatial scale and climatic context, becoming stronger in larger watersheds but diminishing in arid climatic conditions. These insights enhance our understanding of ecosystem multifunctionality and underscore the importance of considering watershed-scale ecological processes and biodiversity in ecosystem management and conservation strategies.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the following researchers for providing valuable data for this analysis: Alexander C. Vibrans, Andrzej M. Jagodzinski, Andy Marshall, Bernhard Schmid, Boknam Lee, Bonaventure Sonké, Bruno Hérault, Christelle Gonmadje, Christian S. Eljatib, Christian Ammer, Christopher Baraloto, Damiano Gianelle, Daniel Piotto, David A. Coomes, David E. Odeke, David Verbyla, Emanuel H. Martin, Eric B. Searle, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Eungul Lee, Fernando Valladares, Filippo Bussotti, Francesco Rovero, Frédéric Mortier, Fumiaki Kitahara, Geerten M. Hengeveld, Hans Pretzsch, Helge Bruelheide, Huicui Lu, Hyun-Seok Kim, Jacek Oleksyn, Jordi Vayreda, Leandro V. Ferreira, Leena Finér, Lorenzo Frizzera, Markus Fischer, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Michael R. Ngugi, Miina Rautiainen, Mo Zhou, Nestor E. Obiang, Nurdin Chamuya, Olivier Bouriaud, Pascal A. Niklaus, Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Peri P. Luis, Radomir Bałazy, Rebecca Tavani, Renato Valencia, Robert Bitariho, Rodolfo M. Vasquez, Susan Wiser, Susanne Brandl, Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury, Terry Sunderland, Timothy O’Brien, Tomasz Zawiła-Niedźwiecki, Tommaso Jucker, Verginia Wortel, Victor J. Neldner, and William Marthy, Xiangdong Lei, and other members of the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative for their generous data contribution, which is essential to the completion of this study. The international collaboration underpinning this study was supported by the Science-i cyberinfrastructure (https://science-i.org/). This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 32401373, 32430068, and 32471650), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (No. Y2022091), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Zhang, J., Reich, P.B., Song, C. et al. Ecological multifunctionality of watersheds increases with tree species richness.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74914-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74914-z
Source: Ecology - nature.com
