Functional diversity is an emerging concept which summarizes key properties of ecosystems of special interest in global climate change studies and in the evaluation of the effects of land management in the preservation of ecosystem services. Functional diversity may be linked directly to the ecosystem services; The Plant biomass encompasses many ecosystem services such as food supply, conservation, tourism pollination. In this study, we tested several hypothesis (1) existence of a close relationship between species richness and plant biomass (2) existence of a close relationship between CWM Functional Diversity index and plant biomass (3) Explain the high percentage of plant biomass variations. The results showed that the species richness in order to predict the plant biomass with a correlation coefficient equal to 3 not count as a proper indicator. But, the correlation coefficient CWM Functional Diversity with plant biomass was about 0.53, which is relatively good indicator to estimate the plant biomass because explained a significant percentage of the biomass variations. Finally, can be seen that the incorporation of Abiotic factors, plant traits and functional diversity (CWM) that contains the parameters of rainfall, leaf length, temperature, CWM- Height, CWM- Long Leaf and CWM-ME are more up 76 percent of plant biomass variations and considered as the most appropriate model predicts plant biomass.

Functional diversity is directly related to ecosystem services, biomass contains most of them such as food, conservation, tourism and pollination. This study attempted to test such assumptions as (i) The existence of close relationship between plant production and the community-weighted mean trait values (CWM), as expected from the "production ratio hypothesis" (ii) existence of close relationship between Rao's functional diversity index with plant production according to "Tilmann hypothesis of diversity" to predict plant production and to find the best relation between plant production with environmental factors in the wooded rangeland of central Zagros. The results showed that among value of CWM, the most R2 was related to functional diversity index of weighted mean of leaf index equal to %37. Also the amount of this index for Rao's functional diversity index was %18 showing that this index only is able to explain about 18 percent of plant production variations. The most community-weighted mean values showed increasing trend with increasing plant production. It was observed that a combination of abiotic factors, Functional diversity (FDQ) and CWM index including of rainfall, temperature, CWM-ME, CWM-Long Leaf, and CWM-Height variables explains about 76% of plant production variations and can be regarded as the most appropriate model to forecast plant production. The results indicate the functional identity of plant community as proposed by Grime is the main driver of ecosystem function compared to niche complementrity hypothesis.

Introduction: Biodiversity includes not only the species number and their abundance but also the differences in the functions of any species, which is measured by the functional diversity indices. On the other hand, land-use change and grazing are two important factors affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study was carried out to investigate the effects of grazing and forestation on functional diversity indices at Cheshmeh Delav in the western part of Northern Khorasan Province, Iran. Material and methods: To measure the functional diversity, the single-trait indices (community-weighted mean; CWM) and also the multiple-trait indices (functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, functional dispersion, Rao quadratic diversity) were used and measured by the "FD" statistical package in "R. 3. 3. 1" software. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Duncan’ s test was used to compare the mean diversity. Results and discussion: The results showed that grazing and forestation have different effects on functional diversity indices. Based on the results, functional richness, Rao index, CWM of height and therophyte had a significant difference in the studied areas. The highest values of functional richness, Rao and CWM of the height index were related to grazing areas. Therefore, the low levels of disturbance factors such as grazing are necessary to reduce competition between plants and an increase in ecosystem function. As CWM of height was the highest at grazing sites, there was a positive relationship between functional richness and CWM. On the other hand, the maximum value of the CWM of therophyte life form was observed in the ungrazing – forestation site due to environmental adverse conditions such as high competition (due to lack of grazing) and disturbance (forestation). Conclusion: Using functional diversity indices as an index of biodiversity that considers not only species abundance, but also functional traits was an effective mean in the study of the effects of different factors on biodiversity and the function of different ecosystems.

The article investigates the experience of the ecosystem production services evaluation of grassland communities using the plant functional traits, leaf area, specific leaf area, and community weighted average specific leaf area (CWM SLA). The direct dependence of the communities’ biomass on the values of the specific leaf area was revealed. Low values of the trait characterize the least productive degraded pasture meadow communities, and the most productive overgrown forest meadows have high values. The studies were conducted on the territory of Raifa forestry Volga-Kama State Natural Biosphere Reserve (VKGPBZ). Based on the outcomes, it is concluded that meadow communities' ecosystem production services can be successfully estimated using the calculation of the community- weighted specific leaf area (CWM SLA).

Present study’s target is to depict an inclusive construction waste management (CWM) plan looking at the total project life cycle. This holistic approach was called Integrated Construction Waste Management (ICWM). This research program was conducted through several consecutive academic dissertations at Civil Engineering Department of SUT and was firstly aimed to identify waste sources throughout project life cycle. Concurrent research efforts were focused on project delivery methods evaluation e.g. contract type effect on waste generation amount along with appropriate guidelines/incentives development that could promote ICMW. These studies were conducted via field observations and questionnaire surveys where respondents were educated, skilled and experienced construction industry experts. The research findings indicate that construction waste origins/processes should be determined separately during construction projects life cycle to devise exclusive solutions accordingly. Furthermore, cost-plus contract, which is common in local residential projects in Iran is identified an improper contract type from construction waste generation standpoint. Incentive based programs, project stakeholders training, salvage plan establishing for all materials before project initiation and apt documentation for future CWM planning are identified effective/practical ICWM solutions. Finally it was concluded that thriving ICWM is going to be a teamwork result rather than responsibility of a sole stakeholder e.g. contractor.

This study was conducted to investigate the efficiency of taxonomic and functional diversity indices in explaining the amount of soil carbon storage of rangelands in the Nazluchay mountain area, Urmia province. For this purpose, soil and vegetation samples from nearly homogeneous map units were collected to calculate the amount of carbon stored in the soil as well as taxonomic and functional diversity. Climatic data were also recorded. The results of the study showed that there is no significant relationship between taxonomic diversity and soil carbon indicate. The results of the hierarchical regression showed the soil storage carbon has a significant linear relationship with silt characteristics, soil bulk density, modified aspect, CWMleaf length functional diversity index (as a representative of mass ratio hypothesis) and Feve and MFAD indicators (As a representative of the niche complementarity hypothesis). The resulting model has a coefficient of determination of 0. 6. All parameters except soil bulk density have a positive relationship with carbon storage and in terms of standard regression coefficients, MFAD and CWMleaf length parameters with coefficients of 1. 2 and 0. 2 have the highest and least role in explaining soil carbon, respectively. In examining the hypotheses of how diversity affects the soil carbon, both the hypotheses of ecological niche complementarity and the hypothesis of mass ratio, are governing in the ecosystem of soil ecosystem storage, but the hypothesis of ecological niche complementarity plays a major role in relation to other hypotheses due to the high standard coefficients in explaining carbon. Based on the results, soil storage carbon increases based on increasing the frequency of long-leafed species, increasing functional evenness (uniform abundant distribution of species in the space of functional traits) and ultimately increasing the diversity of functional groups. In general, neglection of biodiversity reduction and weakening its condition will reduce soil carbon storage capacity.

Extended Abstract Background: Decreasing or increasing diversity affects a community’s sustainability because biodiversity in any living community determines its specific function, and on the other hand, sustainability is considered the ability of an ecosystem to preserve and maintain its function. At the same time as the global threats of climate change and the increase in harvesting intensity in the last few decades, ecosystem functions have been the focus of many researchers. Due to the impact of biodiversity on the protection of different ecosystem functions, many studies have investigated biodiversity indicators and ecosystem functions in different environmental conditions. In the present study, species diversity (richness, Shannon-Wiener, Simpson, and evenness) and functional (functional richness, functional evenness, functional divergence, and CWM indices) indices were used to investigate their relationships with different grazing managements (light and heavy) and two different climates in the basins of Mazandaran province. This research aims to determine the role of variables influencing plant diversity and the pasture ecosystem functioning to help better manage summer pastures that play a protective role for downstream areas in watersheds. Methods: The effects of livestock grazing were investigated on the diversity of two selected watersheds, Zaremrood and Cheshmehkileh, in the east and west of Mazandaran province. After determining plant types in each of the areas, light and heavy grazing sites were determined based on the accessibility and distance to sources, such as livestock husbandry, watering places, and roads. For sampling in the sites, the northern slopes with the same slope (0-20%) were selected to ensure homogeneity. Sampling was done using five main plots (10 × 10 m) so that three plots (1 × 1 m2) were within each plot. Thus, a total of 15 plots were used in each grazing site (light and heavy), and a total of 30 plots were used in the random-systematic design. To measure functional diversity indicators, the easily measurable functional characteristics of plants related to the level of ecosystem functioning were selected and measured in addition to species abundance data. Based on experts, opinions and a review of available sources, five traits (leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf specific area index, plant height, and leaf dry weight) were used to determine functional diversity. Species diversity indices were calculated in PAST software by calculating three indices of species diversity, including species richness, Shannon-Wiener diversity, and Simpson diversity. Data were statistically compared using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) in the form of the general linear model (GLM) and principal component analysis (PCA) to separate the grazing regions that can be separated using functional diversity indices. Results: The dependent variables (weighted average of leaf area and dry matter content) were significantly different in various climates and different livestock grazing patterns. Similarly, the independent variables (area and livestock grazing) were significantly different from the variables of species richness, Shannon-Wiener, and weighted average of leaf area. In the light grazing site of Chashtkhoran rangelands in the Cheshmeh-Kileh basin, the indices, including Simpson (P-value = 0.000), Shannon-Wiener (P-value = 0.000), functional richness (P-value = 0.001), and functional divergence (P-value = 0.08), were more than the heavy grazing site in the Mianband rangeland of the Zaremrood basin. Moreover, the weighted average of the leaf area (P-value = 0.001) was greater in the Chashtkhoran area under light grazing than in the Mianband rangeland. It was higher in the heavy grazing of the Mianband than in the Chashtkhoran Rangeland, but the weighted average of the dry matter content (P-value = 0.001) was vice versa. According to the PCA results, the first component belonged to Simpson, Shannon-Wiener, functional richness, and functional divergence, and the second component is related to evenness, functional evenness, the weighted average of leaf area, the weighted average of dry matter content, and height mean. Due to their high impact, therefore, these factors were identified as the most effective factors in separating areas under light and heavy grazing. The first and second components explain 36.3% and 19.8% of the changes, respectively. Conclusion: The significant interaction between climate and grazing shows that the difference between the light and heavy grazing areas of the two climate zones is characterized by two variables, viz. the weighted averages of leaf area and dry matter content. The leaf area showed higher values for heavy grazing plots in the dry region, and this factor was greater in the light grazing of the humid region. This study highlights the importance of grazing control as an effective management tool for vegetation conservation. It seems that the plant composition in the mountainous rangelands of Iran is more influenced by grazing intensity than climate differences.