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

植被对生态系统的功能起着根本性的作用。结构、特征和物种组成的多样性影响到其运作及其对土地使用和气候变化的稳健性和复原力。基于丰富的数据基础上编译在过去几年中，并辅以进一步有针对性的测量，Syn3旨在分析土地利用和海拔对植被多样性的影响，在三个不同的合成尺度：首先，我们将测试海拔和土地利用对植物群落组装机制的影响，在环境过滤，限制相似性和不传递性方面。此外，为了揭示植被动态及其与上述机制的关系，我们将在所有地块上重复植被调查，每个地块为5 x 20和20 x 50米的子地块。其次，我们将测试土地利用和海拔对植被结构，植物多样性和组成，以及与植物相关的生态系统功能，如生物量，碳储量和枯枝数量之间的关系的影响。此外，我们将特别强调功能性状变异在反应性状和效应性状中的作用，并考虑密切相关的功能性状的复合体。这将使我们能够解决功能性状变异在介导土地利用和海拔对生态系统功能的影响中的作用。为了评估森林生产力的主要生态系统变量，我们将重复森林调查，并继续我们的树木测量。为了补充与工厂相关的水文信息，我们将使用雾度计。第三，我们的目标是在升级的环境参数和植物变量之间的关系，从65 KiLi地块到整个山区规模采用1600植被记录建立在基利曼哈罗在过去的20年。这将使我们能够预测多样性，并评估整个山区与植物有关的生态系统功能（例如森林带的碳储量）。此外，我们的目标是通过重建以前的自然植被来评估土地覆盖和相关的生物多样性变化。总之，Syn3将全面分析植物群落组装的驱动因素和生态系统后果，并将为所有其他综合项目提供重要的植物相关信息。

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.