|
|||||
|
|
Species richness effects on grassland recovery from drought depend on community productivity in a multisite experiment |
|
| Authors: | Juergen Kreyling Jürgen Dengler Julia Walter Nikolay Velev Emin Ugurlu Desislava Sopotlieva Johannes Ransijn Catherine Picon‐Cochard Ivan Nijs Pauline Hernandez Behlül Güler Philipp von Gillhaussen Hans J De Boeck Juliette MG Bloor Sigi Berwaers Carl Beierkuhnlein Mohammed AS Arfin Khan Iva Apostolova Yasin Altan Michaela Zeiter Camilla Wellstein Marcelo Sternberg Andreas Stampfli Giandiego Campetella Sándor Bartha Michael Bahn Anke Jentsch |
| Institution: | 1. Experimental Plant Ecology, Ernst‐Moritz‐Arndt University Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany;2. Plant Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany;3. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig, Germany;4. Landscape Ecology, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany;5. Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria;6. Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Bursa Technical University, Yildirim, Bursa, Turkey;7. Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany;8. Grassland Ecosystem Research, UMR0874 INRA, VetAgroSup, Clermont‐Ferrand, France;9. Plants and Ecosystems, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium;10. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science & Letters, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Yunusemre, Manisa, Turkey;11. Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Germany;12. Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh;13. School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zollikofen, Switzerland;14. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland;15. Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen, Bozen, Italy;16. School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;17. School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Plant Diversity and Ecosystems Management unit, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy;18. Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Vácrátót, Hungary;19. School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WE, Australia;20. Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria |
| Abstract: | Biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning against extreme climatic events, but few experiments have explicitly tested this. Here, we present the first multisite biodiversity × drought manipulation experiment to examine drought resistance and recovery at five temperate and Mediterranean grassland sites. Aboveground biomass production declined by 30% due to experimental drought (standardised local extremity by rainfall exclusion for 72–98 consecutive days). Species richness did not affect resistance but promoted recovery. Recovery was only positively affected by species richness in low‐productive communities, with most diverse communities even showing overcompensation. This positive diversity effect could be linked to asynchrony of species responses. Our results suggest that a more context‐dependent view considering the nature of the climatic disturbance as well as the productivity of the studied system will help identify under which circumstances biodiversity promotes drought resistance or recovery. Stability of biomass production can generally be expected to decrease with biodiversity loss and climate change. |
| Keywords: | Asynchrony diversity– stability relationship resilience insurance hypothesis extreme event ecology coordinated distributed experiment |