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Effects of plant diversity on productivity strengthen over time due to trait-dependent shifts in species overyielding

  • Liting Zheng
  • , Kathryn E. Barry
  • , Nathaly R. Guerrero-Ramírez
  • , Dylan Craven
  • , Peter B. Reich
  • , Kris Verheyen
  • , Michael Scherer-Lorenzen
  • , Nico Eisenhauer
  • , Nadia Barsoum
  • , Jürgen Bauhus
  • , Helge Bruelheide
  • , Jeannine Cavender-Bares
  • , Jiri Dolezal
  • , Harald Auge
  • , Marina V. Fagundes
  • , Olga Ferlian
  • , Sebastian Fiedler
  • , David I. Forrester
  • , Gislene Ganade
  • , Tobias Gebauer
  • Josephine Haase, Peter Hajek, Andy Hector, Bruno Hérault, Dirk Hölscher, Kristin B. Hulvey, Bambang Irawan, Hervé Jactel, Julia Koricheva, Holger Kreft, Vojtěch Lanta, Jan Leps, Simone Mereu, Christian Messier, Florencia Montagnini, Martin Mörsdorf, Sandra Müller, Bart Muys, Charles A. Nock, Alain Paquette, William C. Parker, John D. Parker, John A. Parrotta, Gustavo B. Paterno, Michael P. Perring, Daniel Piotto, H. Wayne Polley, Quentin Ponette, Catherine Potvin, Julius Quosh, Boris Rewald, Douglas L. Godbold, Jasper van Ruijven, Rachel J. Standish, Artur Stefanski, Leti Sundawati, Jon Urgoiti, Laura J. Williams, Brian J. Wilsey, Baiyu Yang, Li Zhang, Zhao Zhao, Yongchuan Yang, Hans Sandén, Anne Ebeling, Bernhard Schmid, Markus Fischer, Martyna M. Kotowska, Cecilia Palmborg, David Tilman, Enrong Yan, Yann Hautier
  • East China Normal University
  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Utrecht University
  • University of Göttingen
  • Universidad Mayor
  • Data Observatory Foundation
  • University of Minnesota
  • Ghent University
  • University of Freiburg
  • German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig
  • Leipzig University
  • Forest Research
  • German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
  • Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
  • University of South Bohemia
  • CAS - Institute of Botany
  • Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research–UFZ
  • Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
  • CSIRO Environment
  • Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
  • University of Oxford
  • CIRAD
  • Working Lands Conservation
  • University of Jambi
  • University of Bordeaux
  • Royal Holloway University of London
  • National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC)
  • Université du Québec à Montréal
  • Yale University
  • KU Leuven
  • University of Alberta
  • Ministry of Natural Resources
  • Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
  • U.S. Forest Service
  • UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)
  • University of Western Australia
  • Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia
  • USDA Agricultural Research Service
  • Université catholique de Louvain
  • McGill University
  • University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
  • Mendel University in Brno
  • Wageningen University
  • Murdoch University
  • Institut Pertanian Bogor
  • Iowa State University
  • Chongqing University
  • University Jena
  • University of Zurich
  • University of Bern
  • Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

65 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Plant diversity effects on community productivity often increase over time. Whether the strengthening of diversity effects is caused by temporal shifts in species-level overyielding (i.e., higher species-level productivity in diverse communities compared with monocultures) remains unclear. Here, using data from 65 grassland and forest biodiversity experiments, we show that the temporal strength of diversity effects at the community scale is underpinned by temporal changes in the species that yield. These temporal trends of species-level overyielding are shaped by plant ecological strategies, which can be quantitatively delimited by functional traits. In grasslands, the temporal strengthening of biodiversity effects on community productivity was associated with increasing biomass overyielding of resource-conservative species increasing over time, and with overyielding of species characterized by fast resource acquisition either decreasing or increasing. In forests, temporal trends in species overyielding differ when considering above- versus belowground resource acquisition strategies. Overyielding in stem growth decreased for species with high light capture capacity but increased for those with high soil resource acquisition capacity. Our results imply that a diversity of species with different, and potentially complementary, ecological strategies is beneficial for maintaining community productivity over time in both grassland and forest ecosystems.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2078
Number of pages14
JournalNature Communications
Volume15
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

Bibliographical note

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© The Author(s) 2024.

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