Biodiversity affects microclimate - plant diversity and functional traits driving temperature and humidity using proximal sensing.

Microclimate ecology conveys fundamental information about how organisms react to and feedback to influence climate change. Evidence shows that vegetation and its spatial variation modify microclimate temperature and relative humidity, mediating thermal regulation and energy exchange with the atmosphere by affecting vapour pressure deficit (VPD) [2]. This process influences crucial eco-physiological processes such as carbon capture,  nutrient cycling, and flower visitation, promoting ecosystem productivity. Diverse communities typically display complex canopies due to functionally dissimilar species that spatially complement each other. The differences in diverse communities' canopy have the potential to modulate energy exchange and affect canopy surface temperature [1]. 

However, microclimate measurements are typically made at the coarse spatial scale using climate means based on meteorological stations or satellites, which ignore the bounded exchange between upper and lower canopy layers. Our approach integrates sub-canopy sensors with remotely sensed products and reveals that microclimate is driven by plant functional traits, groups, and the diversity of plant communities [1, 2, 3]. In biodiversity experiments, we assessed microclimate using under- and upper-canopy microclimate sensors and estimated plant canopy structure with a high spatial resolution (proximal sensing such as terrestrial laser scanning). 

We demonstrate that examining trait-microclimate relationships reveals the potential of diverse communities and communities dominated by species with particular traits to buffer ecosystems from the negative effects of warming and air dryness. Fundamentally, we propose that future work focuses on the facilitative effects of vegetation microclimate, indicating how plant community composition and diversity feedback on vegetative cooling and air humidification under more frequent and intense climate change events.

[1] Guimarães-Steinicke et al. (2021) J Ecol. 109: 1969–1985, http://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13631
[2] Wright et al. (2024) Journal of Ecology, 112, 2462–2470. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14313

[3] English et al. (2022) Frontiers, 10, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.921472