and of course a great collaborative effort
@cnrsecologie.bsky.social @martin-stpaul.bsky.social @mcuntz.bsky.social
@hcochard.bsky.social @e-joetzjer.bsky.social @julienruffault.bsky.social (among others)

I think there is a general pattern out there...

These results open up new perspectives for forestry policies, by highlighting an overlooked advantage of mixed species over pure stands.
(Note that there is also many side results in the maoin text + appendices)
We hope you'll like the paper! 7/7

2- The effect of the number of species on productivity can be up to 10 times greater when stand density can vary as a function of species composition (shown through an extensive simulation experiment using a forest dynamics model). 6/7

Here we report two main findings:
1- When a forest contains more species, it contains more trees on average (shown by analysing the national forest inventories of 6 countries : Finland, Sweden, Germany, Wallonia, France, Spain). To do so we relied on assessing self-thinning lines. 5/7

= The possible role of processes visible at the stand level, such as the change in maximum tree density, has been ignored, or at best neglected. For example, most of the BEF experiments carried out on this question compare plots with fixed densities. 4/7

We know that mixed forests are on average more productive than monospecific ones.
Yet, the mechanisms proposed to explain this diversity-productivity link in forests have essentially focused on how the growth of individual trees is impacted by their direct neighbourhood (monospecific vs mixed) 3/7

Why special? ▶️ 1) the idea came out more than 12 yr ago, 2) testing it required adapting a complete forest dynamics model (which took time) and carrying out numerous simulations (which also took time..), 3) a collaboration with a great team eg. @joguillemot.bsky.social @riottelambert.bsky.social 2/7