Trade-Offs and Synergies of Forest Ecosystem Services from the Perspective of Plant Functional Traits : A Systematic Review

Understanding the mechanisms of forest ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies is critical for management. Plant functional traits provide an approach to identify the relationships among forest structure, processes, and ecosystem services, and to explain the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services. Here, we performed a systematic literature review of forest ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies from the perspective of plant functional traits from 216 articles. Plant leaf traits were the most studied, accounting for 51.9% of the total. Soil fertility (16.7%), biomass (15.7%) and carbon sequestration services (14.7%) were the most studied ecosystem services. Plant functional traits (15.4%) associated with individual services tended to have stable positive or negative relationships with those services, but most plant functional traits (84.6%) were associated with multiple ecosystem services. Trade-off relationships primarily existed between regulating services (runoff control, pest control, carbon regulation, invasion control, air quality regulation, and soil conservation) and material production services (biomass, soil water content, sediment buffering of mass movement, and wind protection). Synergies primarily existed within regulating services and material production services. The 41 plant functional traits that had a substantial influence on ecosystem service trade-offs or synergies corresponded to five different ecosystem structures or processes (belowground structure, aboveground structure, material decomposition, material production, and nutrient capture). We found empirical evidence of the relationships between plant functional traits and forest ecosystem services. The information provides a theoretical basis for plant species selection and plant community assembly for forest restoration or management