The relationship between tree biodiversity and biomass dynamics changes with tropical forest succession

“…In the subsequent period of 2012-2017, we found that the main impact factors on ΔAGB shifted to phylogenetic diversity and structural diversity. This is in line with previous studies suggesting that BEF relationships in forests could change over time ( Lasky et al., 2014 ; Gottschall et al., 2022 ). The shift could be a consequence of the formation of canopy gaps in this forest ( Man et al., 2011 ), which could increase the light availability of understory vegetation ( Zhu et al., 2014 ; Song et al., 2018 ).…”

“…The positive effects of both multivariate and single‐trait functional dispersion on AGB also decreased or shifted from positive to non‐significant/negative from young to over‐mature stands. These results are also consistent with those in literature, which showed strong and positive biodiversity–biomass dynamics in young stands, followed by weak and negative trends in older stands in tropical forests (Laskya et al 2014, Satdichanh et al 2019). The strong positive effects of functional dispersion on AGB in young stands might be explained by stands with high functional composition and low mortality in the early successional stages, which are linked to complementarity effects (Laskya et al 2014, Tatsumi 2020).…”

“…As a result, selection effects decreased after four years in our experiment, while complementarity effects continued to increase. This is in line with previous findings showing that selection effects play a major role at the beginning, but are replaced by complementarity effects after some time (Fargione et al, 2007;Jing et al, 2021;Lasky et al, 2014). Overall, our results support the hypothesis that co-occurring species in high-diverse temperate forests differ in niches and competitive abilities, which leads to strong biodiversity effects and higher productivity in mixtures compared to their monospecific counterparts Huang et al, 2018;Morin et al, 2011;Urgoiti et al, 2022).…”