Prediction of spatial distribution characteristics of ecosystem functions based on a minimum data set of functional traits of desert plants

The relationship between plant functional traits and ecosystem function is a hot topic in current ecological research, and community-level traits based on individual plant functional traits play important roles in ecosystem function. In temperate desert ecosystems, which functional trait to use to predict ecosystem function is an important scientific question. In this study, the minimum data sets of functional traits of woody (wMDS) and herbaceous (hMDS) plants were constructed and used to predict the spatial distribution of C, N, and P cycling in ecosystems. The results showed that the wMDS included plant height, specific leaf area, leaf dry weight, leaf water content, diameter at breast height (DBH), leaf width, and leaf thickness, and the hMDS included plant height, specific leaf area, leaf fresh weight, leaf length, and leaf width. The linear regression results based on the cross-validations (FTEIW - L, FTEIA - L, FTEIW - NL, and FTEIA - NL) for the MDS and TDS (total data set) showed that the R2 (coefficients of determination) for wMDS were 0.29, 0.34, 0.75, and 0.57, respectively, and those for hMDS were 0.82, 0.75, 0.76, and 0.68, respectively, proving that the MDSs can replace the TDS in predicting ecosystem function. Then, the MDSs were used to predict the C, N, and P cycling in the ecosystem. The results showed that non-linear models RF and BPNN were able to predict the spatial distributions of C, N and P cycling, and the distributions showed inconsistent patterns between different life forms under moisture restrictions. The C, N, and P cycling showed strong spatial autocorrelation and were mainly influenced by structural factors. Based on the non-linear models, the MDSs can be used to accurately predict the C, N, and P cycling, and the predicted values of woody plant functional traits visualized by regression kriging were closer to the kriging results based on raw values. This study provides a new perspective for exploring the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function.