@article {126681, title = {Environmental heterogeneity modulates the effect of plant diversity on the spatial variability of grassland biomass.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {14}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Mar 31}, pages = {1809}, abstract = {

Plant productivity varies due to environmental heterogeneity, and theory suggests that plant diversity can reduce this variation. While there is strong evidence of diversity effects on temporal variability of productivity, whether this mechanism extends to variability across space remains elusive. Here we determine the relationship between plant diversity and spatial variability of productivity in 83 grasslands, and quantify the effect of experimentally increased spatial heterogeneity in environmental conditions on this relationship. We found that communities with higher plant species richness (alpha and gamma diversity) have lower spatial variability of productivity as reduced abundance of some species can be compensated for by increased abundance of other species. In contrast, high species dissimilarity among local communities (beta diversity) is positively associated with spatial variability of productivity, suggesting that changes in species composition can scale up to affect productivity. Experimentally increased spatial environmental heterogeneity weakens the effect of plant alpha and gamma diversity, and reveals that beta diversity can simultaneously decrease and increase spatial variability of productivity. Our findings unveil the generality of the diversity-stability theory across space, and suggest that reduced local diversity and biotic homogenization can affect the spatial reliability of key ecosystem functions.

}, keywords = {Biodiversity, Biomass, Ecosystem, Grassland, Plants, Reproducibility of Results}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-023-37395-y}, author = {Daleo, Pedro and Alberti, Juan and Chaneton, Enrique J and Iribarne, Oscar and Tognetti, Pedro M and Bakker, Jonathan D and Borer, Elizabeth T and Bruschetti, Mart{\'\i}n and MacDougall, Andrew S and Pascual, Jesus and Sankaran, Mahesh and Seabloom, Eric W and Wang, Shaopeng and Bagchi, Sumanta and Brudvig, Lars A and Catford, Jane A and Dickman, Chris R and Dickson, Timothy L and Donohue, Ian and Eisenhauer, Nico and Gruner, Daniel S and Haider, Sylvia and Jentsch, Anke and Knops, Johannes M H and Lekberg, Ylva and McCulley, Rebecca L and Moore, Joslin L and Mortensen, Brent and Ohlert, Timothy and P{\"a}rtel, Meelis and Peri, Pablo L and Power, Sally A and Risch, Anita C and Rocca, Camila and Smith, Nicholas G and Stevens, Carly and Tamme, Riin and Veen, G F Ciska and Wilfahrt, Peter A and Hautier, Yann} } @article {96101, title = {Negative effects of nitrogen override positive effects of phosphorus on grassland legumes worldwide.}, journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A}, volume = {118}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 Jul 13}, abstract = {

Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is driving global biodiversity decline and modifying ecosystem functions. Theory suggests that plant functional types that fix atmospheric nitrogen have a competitive advantage in nitrogen-poor soils, but lose this advantage with increasing nitrogen supply. By contrast, the addition of phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients may benefit such species in low-nutrient environments by enhancing their nitrogen-fixing capacity. We present a global-scale experiment confirming these predictions for nitrogen-fixing legumes (Fabaceae) across 45 grasslands on six continents. Nitrogen addition reduced legume cover, richness, and biomass, particularly in nitrogen-poor soils, while cover of non-nitrogen-fixing plants increased. The addition of phosphorous, potassium, and other nutrients enhanced legume abundance, but did not mitigate the negative effects of nitrogen addition. Increasing nitrogen supply thus has the potential to decrease the diversity and abundance of grassland legumes worldwide regardless of the availability of other nutrients, with consequences for biodiversity, food webs, ecosystem resilience, and genetic improvement of protein-rich agricultural plant species.

}, issn = {1091-6490}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.2023718118}, author = {Tognetti, Pedro M and Prober, Suzanne M and B{\'a}ez, Selene and Chaneton, Enrique J and Firn, Jennifer and Risch, Anita C and Schuetz, Martin and Simonsen, Anna K and Yahdjian, Laura and Borer, Elizabeth T and Seabloom, Eric W and Arnillas, Carlos Alberto and Bakker, Jonathan D and Brown, Cynthia S and Cadotte, Marc W and Caldeira, Maria C and Daleo, Pedro and Dwyer, John M and Fay, Philip A and Gherardi, Laureano A and Hagenah, Nicole and Hautier, Yann and Komatsu, Kimberly J and McCulley, Rebecca L and Price, Jodi N and Standish, Rachel J and Stevens, Carly J and Wragg, Peter D and Sankaran, Mahesh} } @article {84576, title = {General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 10 23}, pages = {5375}, abstract = {

Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant diversity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant diversity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42 grasslands across the globe and quantify the effect of chronic fertilization on these relationships. Unfertilized local communities with more plant species exhibit greater asynchronous dynamics among species in response to natural environmental fluctuations, resulting in greater local stability (alpha stability). Moreover, neighborhood communities that have greater spatial variation in plant species composition within sites (higher beta diversity) have greater spatial asynchrony of productivity among communities, resulting in greater stability at the larger scale (gamma stability). Importantly, fertilization consistently weakens the contribution of plant diversity to both of these stabilizing mechanisms, thus diminishing the positive effect of biodiversity on stability at differing spatial scales. Our findings suggest that preserving grassland functional stability requires conservation of plant diversity within and among ecological communities.

}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-19252-4}, author = {Hautier, Yann and Zhang, Pengfei and Loreau, Michel and Wilcox, Kevin R and Seabloom, Eric W and Borer, Elizabeth T and Byrnes, Jarrett E K and Koerner, Sally E and Komatsu, Kimberly J and Lefcheck, Jonathan S and Hector, Andy and Adler, Peter B and Alberti, Juan and Arnillas, Carlos A and Bakker, Jonathan D and Brudvig, Lars A and Bugalho, Miguel N and Cadotte, Marc and Caldeira, Maria C and Carroll, Oliver and Crawley, Mick and Collins, Scott L and Daleo, Pedro and Dee, Laura E and Eisenhauer, Nico and Eskelinen, Anu and Fay, Philip A and Gilbert, Benjamin and Hansar, Amandine and Isbell, Forest and Knops, Johannes M H and MacDougall, Andrew S and McCulley, Rebecca L and Moore, Joslin L and Morgan, John W and Mori, Akira S and Peri, Pablo L and Pos, Edwin T and Power, Sally A and Price, Jodi N and Reich, Peter B and Risch, Anita C and Roscher, Christiane and Sankaran, Mahesh and Sch{\"u}tz, Martin and Smith, Melinda and Stevens, Carly and Tognetti, Pedro M and Virtanen, Risto and Wardle, Glenda M and Wilfahrt, Peter A and Wang, Shaopeng} }