ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Plant diversity enhances productivity and soil carbon storage.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers.
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Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 706 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intraspecific variation pattern and adaptation mechanism of ephemeral plants root functional traits in arid region.BMC plant biology · 2026Article
- Aridity-related differences in soil elemental ratios reshape microbial functional traits across global biomes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- China's "greening but weakening" protected areas reveal a global conservation quality-quantity dilemma.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Precipitation and plant cover promote soil organic carbon accumulation in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.AoB PLANTS · 2026Article
- The Elevational Distribution Patterns and Driving Factors of Plant Carbon Storage Across Different Functional Groups in Subalpine Grasslands of the Eastern Loess Plateau, China.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Unraveling the Independent Effects of Species Richness and Composition on Microbial Biofilm Growth.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Urban forest restoration enhances soil microbial functional potential and functional insurance via shifts in β-diversity.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Urban forest plant diversity affects soil organic carbon by regulating functional genes in Nanning.iScience · 2026Article
- Plant diversity's positive effect on soil respiration diminishes with increasing productivity in global forests.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Large slow-growing hydrophytes increase wetland carbon storage.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Resistance of shallow soil carbon to both short-term isolated and recurrent droughts in two semi-arid grasslands.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Article
- Tree species diversity promotes soil microbial carbon fixation gene abundance via nutrient-mediated interactions in subtropical forests.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Plant diversity and precipitation gradients drive litter return and SOC in alpine vegetation.Carbon balance and management · 2025Article
- Soil nutrient limitation controls trophic cascade effects of micro-food web-derived ecological functions in degraded agroecosystems.Journal of advanced research · 2025Article
- Assessment of biomass and carbon stock in subtropical Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn. f.) forests in the North Western Himalayas.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Un(der)explored links between plant diversity and particulate and mineral-associated organic matter in soil.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Impacts of diverse undersown cover crops on seasonal soil microbial properties.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Biodiversity loss disrupts seasonal carbon dynamics in a species-rich temperate grassland.Ecology · 2025Article
- Tree species composition governs urban phenological responses to warming.Nature communications · 2025Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
25 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite evidence from experimental grasslands that plant diversity increases biomass production and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, it remains unclear whether this is true in natural ecosystems, especially under climatic variations and human disturbances. Based on field observations from 6,098 forest, shrubland, and grassland sites across China and predictions from an integrative model combining multiple theories, we systematically examined the direct effects of climate, soils, and human impacts on SOC storage versus the indirect effects mediated by species richness (SR), aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), and belowground biomass (BB). We found that favorable climates (high temperature and precipitation) had a consistent negative effect on SOC storage in forests and shrublands, but not in grasslands. Climate favorability, particularly high precipitation, was associated with both higher SR and higher BB, which had consistent positive effects on SOC storage, thus offsetting the direct negative effect of favorable climate on SOC. The indirect effects of climate on SOC storage depended on the relationships of SR with ANPP and BB, which were consistently positive in all biome types. In addition, human disturbance and soil pH had both direct and indirect effects on SOC storage, with the indirect effects mediated by changes in SR, ANPP, and BB. High soil pH had a consistently negative effect on SOC storage. Our findings have important implications for improving global carbon cycling models and ecosystem management: Maintaining high levels of diversity can enhance soil carbon sequestration and help sustain the benefits of plant diversity and productivity.
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