MultiTroph

MultiTroph: All Subprojects

MultiTroph is a multi-disciplinary project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) that started in October 2022 and will end in October 2026. The overall objective of MultiTroph is to identify mechanisms underlying the relationships of biodiversity with ecosystem functions across trophic levels. Our goal is to quantify species interactions between primary producers and different trophic and functional groups of consumers and ultimately connect the different interaction types to large food webs to increase our understanding of how, why and when ecosystem functions are destabilised with species loss. Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research demonstrated the importance of biodiverse communities for promoting ecosystem functions such as biomass production, carbon sequestration, herbivory and predation. Likewise, plant diversity increases ecosystem stability but little is known on how tree diversity structures complex trophic interaction networks associated with plants. To understand how tree diversity is linked to biomass production, element cycling and species conservation, the DFG has initiated, with the Research Unit FOR 891, the largest forest biodiversity experiment worldwide located in subtropical China and thereby established the BEF-China research platform.

2024-02-29

2024-03-12