Positive effects of species mixing on biodiversity of understory plant communities and soil health in forest plantations

Abstract

Mixed-species plantations are increasingly recognized for their potential to maintain forest biodiversity and soil health; however, a comprehensive assessment of their global effectiveness is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of 7,045 paired observations between mixed-species and monoculture plantations, derived from 311 studies across diverse forest ecosystems worldwide. Our results show that mixed-species plantations significantly increased understory plant biomass, cover, and species richness by 32.6%, 55.4%, and 32.2%, respectively, compared to monocultures. Furthermore, the Shannon and Pielou diversity indices increased by 28.2% and 8.6%, respectively, and the Simpson index increased by 9.6%. When understory shrub and herbaceous species were considered separately, species mixing had significantly positive effects on shrub diversity but had no effect on herbaceous diversity. Moreover, mixed-species plantations markedly improved soil physical and chemical properties compared to monocultures. These improvements include increases in soil nutrient content (9.6 to 17.8%) and nutrient availability (14.7 to 33.5%), soil microbial biomass (17.2 to 28.8%), and soil carbon sequestration (7.2 to 19.9%). These enhancements were particularly pronounced in plantations that included legumes. Our findings reveal that the benefits of species mixing are influenced by climatic conditions, geographic location, and stand age, with the most substantial effects observed in temperate regions and mature stands. This study underscores the critical role of mixed-species plantations in promoting sustainable forest management and mitigating the ecological limitations of monocultures.