Biomass and dominance of conservative species drive above-ground biomass productivity in a mediterranean-type forest of Chile

Forest Ecosystems

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of all biotic and abiotic independent variables used to predict aboveground biomass productivity of the Chilean matorral across the 12 plots

Hypothesis	Variable	Abbreviation	Units	Avg	Min	Max
Vegetation quantity	Basal area	BA	m²∙ha⁻¹	7.16	0.15	33.33
	Tree density	DT	plants∙ha⁻¹	1949	48	4496
	Leaf area index	LAI	m²∙m⁻²	2.45	0.1	7.46
Niche complementarity	Tree richness	S	species∙plot⁻¹	3	1	5
	Shannon index	H′	–	0.65	0	1.35
	Mean pairwise distance	MPD	–	0.32	0	0.55
Mass-ratio	CWM of height plant	CWM H	m	7.36	4.1	9.16
	CWM of leaf life span	CWM LLS	months	24	10	40
	Species dominance (p_i)*
	Cryptocarya alba	C. alba	proportion	0.27	0	0.92
	Peumus boldus	P. boldus	proportion	0.01	0	0.10
	Lithraea caustica	L. caustica	proportion	0.09	0	0.24
	Quillaja saponaria	Q. saponaria	proportion	0.20	0	1
Soil resources availability	Volumetric water content	VWC	m³∙m⁻³	0.12	0.17	0.25
	Soil nitrogen content	N	%	0.18	0.06	0.34
	Soil inorganic nitrogen	SIN	ppm	11	8.2	23
	Carbon/nitrogen ratio	C/N	ratio	14.18	10.52	19.11
	Clay	CY	%	11.74	2.9	22.1
	Silt	ST	%	32.5	18.0	50.6
	Sand	SD	%	55.81	34.9	79.1

Legend: (*) The averages were computed across all the plots. p_i = species relative abundances in basal area. CWM = Community-Weighted Mean. MPD = Mean species pairwise dissimilarity. Average (Avg), minimum value (Min) and maximum value (Max)