Species dominance rather than species asynchrony determines the temporal stability of productivity in four subtropical forests along 30 years of restoration

Understanding biodiversity and its relationship with ecosystem functioning along forest succession is extremely important to assessing dynamics of community stability and ecosystem integrity. Previous studies have revealed that increases in species richness, phylogenetic diversity (PD), species asynchrony and dominance can stabilize the temporal stability of community biomass in grasslands. However, how these determinants influence the stabilizing effect of biodiversity on forest productivity remains poorly understood. We analyzed the relationships between woody plant diversity and productivity stability along 30 years of restoration (1985-2015) in four types of subtropical forest: a mixed Eucalyptus plantation (EE), an Acacia mangiwn monoculture (AM), a mixed native species plantation (NS), and a mixed coniferous plantation (MC). Our results showed that community stability in three mixed species plantations (EE, NS, and MC) rather than the AM monoculture augmented remarkably as restoration proceeded. Both species richness and phylogenetic diversity significantly stabilized community productivity in the mixed species plantations instead of the monoculture during the 30-year restoration period. Species asynchrony was not a significant factor contributing to the forest productivity stability. Instead, community stability was mainly driven by that of the dominant tree species, and to a lesser extent, by the species richness. We demonstrated the more important role of species dominance in maintaining the temporal stability of forest productivity, which differs from that (species asynchrony) for grassland communities.