Biodiv Sci ›› 2001, Vol. 09 ›› Issue (1): 1-7.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2001001

Special Issue: 生物多样性与生态系统功能

• 论文 •     Next Articles

Effects of species diversity on ecosystem functioning: mechanisms and hypotheses

HUANG Jian-Hui, BAI Yong-Fei, HAN Xing-Guo   

  1. Laboratory of Quantitative Vegetation Ecology,Institute of Botany,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100093
  • Received:2000-12-20 Revised:2001-01-04 Online:2001-02-20 Published:2001-02-20
  • Contact: HUANG Jian-Hui

Abstract: This paper introduces the effects of species diversity on ecosystem functioning: the mechanisms and hypotheses, including the redundant species hypothesis, rivet hypothesis, idiosyncratic hypothesis, null hypothesis, compensatory/keystone species hypothesis, non-linear hypothesis, and monotonic/unimodal hypothesis. To date, no single hypothesis is accepted as truly reflecting the real relations, if they do exist, between species diversity and ecosystem function. According to our analysis, there is an intrinsic relationship among these hypotheses. They either include or complement each other and may all be considered as related to the redundant species hypothesis.