Synthesis Project 3: Drivers and ecosystem consequences of plant community assembly

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Vegetation plays a fundamental role for the functioning of ecosystems. Diversity of structure, traits and species composition influences functioning and its robustness and resilience to land-use and climate change. Based on a rich data basis compiled over the past years, and complemented by further targeted measurements, Syn3 aims at analysing effects of land use and elevation on vegetation diversity at three different scales of synthesis: First, we will test the effect of elevation and land use on mechanisms of plant community assembly in terms of environmental filtering, limiting similarity, and intransitivity. Moreover, to reveal vegetation dynamics and their relation to the above-mentioned mechanisms we will repeat the vegetation survey on all plots for 5 x 20 and 20 x 50 m subplots per plot. Second, we will test effects of land use and elevation on the relationships between vegetation structure, plant diversity and composition, and plant-related ecosystem functions, such as biomass, carbon storage and amount of deadwood. Furthermore we will put particular emphasis on the role of functional trait variation, both in response and effect traits, and on considering ¿complexes¿ of closely related functional traits. This will allow us to address the role of functional trait variation in mediating effects of land use and elevation on ecosystem functioning. To assess the major ecosystem variable of forest productivity we will repeat the forest inventory and continue our dendrometrical measurements. To complement plant-related hydrological information we will use fog gauges. Third, we aim at upscaling the found relationships between environmental parameters and plant variables from the 65 KiLi plots to the whole mountain scale by employing 1600 vegetation records established on Kilimanjaro during the last 20 years. This will enable us to predict diversity and to assess plant-related ecosystem functions for the whole mountain (e.g. carbon stocks of the forest belt). Furthermore, we aim to assess land cover and related biodiversity changes by reconstructing the former natural vegetation. In conclusion, Syn3 will comprehensively analyse the drivers and ecosystem consequences of plant community assembly, and it will provide important plant-related information for all other synthesis projects.