RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Strong positive biodiversity–productivity relationships in a subtropical forest experiment JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 206722 DO 10.1101/206722 A1 Yuanyuan Huang A1 Yuxin Chen A1 Nadia Castro-Izaguirre A1 Martin Baruffol A1 Matteo Brezzi A1 Anne Lang A1 Ying Li A1 Werner Härdtle A1 Goddert von Oheimb A1 Xuefei Yang A1 Kequan Pei A1 Sabine Both A1 Xiaojuan Liu A1 Bo Yang A1 David Eichenberg A1 Thorsten Assmann A1 Jürgen Bauhus A1 Thorsten Behrens A1 Francois Busçot A1 Xiao-Yong Chen A1 Douglas Chesters A1 Bing-Yang Ding A1 Walter Durka A1 Alexandra Erfmeier A1 Jingyun Fang A1 Markus Fischer A1 Liang-Dong Guo A1 Dali Guo A1 Jessica L.M. Gutknecht A1 Jin-Sheng He A1 Chun-Ling He A1 Andy Hector A1 Lydia Hönig A1 Ren-Yong Hu A1 Alexandra-Maria Klein A1 Peter Kuehn A1 Yu Liang A1 Stefan Michalski A1 Michael Scherer-Lorenzen A1 Karsten Schmidt A1 Thomas Scholten A1 Andreas Schuldt A1 Xuezheng Shi A1 Man-Zhi Tan A1 Zhiyao Tang A1 Stefan Trogisch A1 Zhengwen Wang A1 Erik Welk A1 Christian Wirth A1 Tesfaye Wubet A1 Wenhua Xiang A1 Jiye Yan A1 Mingjian Yu A1 Xiao-Dong Yu A1 Jiayong Zhang A1 Shouren Zhang A1 Naili Zhang A1 Hong-Zhang Zhou A1 Chao-Dong Zhu A1 Li Zhu A1 Helge Bruelheide A1 Keping Ma A1 Pascal A. Niklaus A1 Bernhard Schmid YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/10/20/206722.abstract AB Forest ecosystems contribute substantially to global terrestrial primary productivity and climate regulation, but, in contrast to grasslands, experimental evidence for a positive biodiversity-productivity relationship in highly diverse forests is still lacking1. Here, we provide such evidence from a large forest biodiversity experiment with a novel design2 in subtropical China. Productivity (stand-level tree basal area, aboveground volume and carbon and their annual increment) increased linearly with the logarithm of tree species richness. Additive partitioning3 showed that increasing positive complementarity effects combined with weakening negative selection effects caused a strengthening of the relationship over time. In 2-species mixed stands, complementary effects increased with functional distance and selection effects with vertical crown dissimilarity between species. Understorey shrubs reduced stand-level tree productivity, but this effect of competition was attenuated by shrub species richness, indicating that a diverse understorey may facilitate overall ecosystem functioning. Identical biodiversity-productivity relationships were found in plots of different size, suggesting that extrapolation to larger scales is possible. Our results highlight the potential of multi-species afforestation strategies to simultaneously contribute to mitigation of climate change and biodiversity restoration.