MLU

"The result came as a complete surprise to us as we discovered that there is no positive correlation between functional and phylogenetic diversity. In fact, the two are often negatively correlated," explains Georg Hähn from the University of Bologna, who began working on the study as part of his master's thesis at MLU.

"Until now, scientists have assumed that, in an ecosystem, there is a positive correlation between the plant species' functional plant traits, such as height or leaf structure, and their phylogenetic diversity, in other words, the more distantly related the species are in the ecosystem, the more their functional traits should differ," explains Professor Helge Bruelheide, a geobotanist at MLU.

"Sedimentation occurs, for example, on the hard-to-reach seafloor over a very long period of time. In addition, clay particles are only a few micrometres or less in size. As a result, conventional microscopy methods are not suitable for the observation of clay particles during sedimentation," explains Dr Rebecca Kühn, a geoscientist at MLU, lead researcher of the study.

"This instrument allowed us to observe sedimentation in real-time," says geologist Professor Michael Stipp at MLU.

Extremely large amounts of data can be generated from such measurements; however, as there was no quick evaluation method for this, co-author Dr Rüdiger Kilian from MLU developed one for the new study.