Plant diversity and productivity experiments in european grasslands

@article{Hctor1999PlantDA,
  title={Plant diversity and productivity experiments in european grasslands},
  author={H{\'e}ctor and Schmid and Beierkuhnlein and Caldeira and Diemer and Dimitrakopoulos and Finn and Freitas and Giller and Good and Harris and Hogberg and Huss‐Danell and Joshi and Jumpponen and Korner and Leadley and Loreau and Minns and Mulder and O'donovan and Otway and Pereira and Prinz and Read and et},
  journal={Science},
  year={1999},
  volume={286 5442},
  pages={
          1123-7
        }
}
  • Héctor, Schmid, et
  • Published 5 November 1999
  • Environmental Science
  • Science
At eight European field sites, the impact of loss of plant diversity on primary productivity was simulated by synthesizing grassland communities with different numbers of plant species. [] Key Result Results differed in detail at each location, but there was an overall log-linear reduction of average aboveground biomass with loss of species. For a given number of species, communities with fewer functional groups were less productive.
View on PubMed
k-state.edu
1,842 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
72
Background Citations
570
Methods Citations
59
Results Citations
69

1,842 Citations

Positive effects of plant species diversity on productivity in the absence of legumes
TLDR
Evidence is provided that niche complementarity can strongly increase productivity in grasslands, although the communities contained only grasses and forbs.
ECOSYSTEM EFFECTS OF BIODIVERSITY MANIPULATIONS IN EUROPEAN GRASSLANDS
TLDR
Results from a multisite analysis of the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning within the European BIODEPTH network of plant-diversity manipulation experiments largely reinforce the previous results, and those from comparable biodiversity experiments, and extend the generality of diversity–ecosystem functioning relationships to multiple sites, years, and processes.
Tree species diversity and ecosystem function: Can tropical multi-species plantations generate greater productivity?
Above-ground resource use increases with plant species richness in experimental grassland ecosystems
TLDR
It is shown that with increasing diversity, mixtures perform better than the best monoculture, a strong indication that part of the positive effect of diversity on biomass production is driven by complementary resource use.
Plant species richness and functional composition drive overyielding in a six-year grassland experiment.
TLDR
It is concluded that transgressive overyielding between functional groups and species richness effects within functional groups caused the positive biodiversity effects on aboveground community biomass in the large-scale biodiversity experiment near Jena, Germany.
Mechanisms of positive biodiversity–production relationships: insights provided by δ13C analysis in experimental Mediterranean grassland plots
TLDR
The role of water use in a Mediterranean grassland was investigated, and a positive relationship was observed between plant species richness and productivity, suggesting complementarity or facilitation may be the mechanism responsible for the positive relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem processes.
Community maturity, species saturation and the variant diversity-productivity relationships in grasslands.
TLDR
Community richness was enhanced by seeding additional species but productivity was not, and optimal diversity changed among sites and as the community developed, the findings shed new light on ecosystem functioning of biodiversity under different conditions and have important implications for restoration.
Biodiversity influences ecosystem functioning in aquatic angiosperm communities
TLDR
The results suggest that mixed seagrass meadows play an important role for ecosystem functioning and thus contribute to the provision of goods and services in coastal areas.
Effects of plant diversity, community composition and environmental parameters on productivity in montane European grasslands
TLDR
The data show that it is difficult to extrapolate results from experimental studies to semi-natural ecosystems, although there is a need to investigate natural ecosystems to fully understand the relationship of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
Species richness, temporal variability and resistance of biomass production in a Mediterranean grassland
TLDR
It is demonstrated for the first time that the relative strength of overyielding remained constant during an exceptional natural environmental perturbation, supporting previous findings of a positive relationship between diversity and productivity and between Diversity and the temporal stability of production, but of no effect of diversity on the resistance to perturbations.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 31 REFERENCES
Biodiversity and plant productivity in a model assemblage of plant species
TLDR
Productivity as a function of biotic diversity was examined and showed that species-poor assemblages had wider ranges of possible productivities than more diverse assemblage.
THE ROLE OF COMPLEMENTARITY AND COMPETITION IN ECOSYSTEM RESPONSES TO VARIATION IN PLANT DIVERSITY
TLDR
Results show that composition can be at least as important as richness as richness (the number of species present) in effects on ecosystem processes; competition during critical parts of the growing season may prevent absolute increases in net primary production with increasing diversity, despite complementary resource use at other times of the year.
The Effects of Plant Composition and Diversity on Ecosystem Processes
TLDR
It is possible to identify and differentiate among potential mechanisms underlying patterns of ecosystem response to variation in plant diversity, with implications for resource management.
Plant diversity and ecosystem productivity: theoretical considerations.
TLDR
Three simple models of interspecific competitive interactions in communities containing various numbers of randomly chosen species predict that, on average, productivity increases asymptotically with the original biodiversity of a community and show that both species identity and biodiversity simultaneously influence ecosystem functioning.
Effects of plant composition and diversity on nutrient cycling
TLDR
An index of “relative resource use” that incorporates the effects of plants on pool sizes of several depletable soil resources: inorganic nitrogen in all seasons, availability of available nutrient pool sizes, and leaching losses is used.
The Influence of Functional Diversity and Composition on Ecosystem Processes
TLDR
Functional composition and functional diversity were the principal factors explaining plant productivity, plant percent nitrogen, plant total nitrogen, and light penetration in grassland plots.
A problem for biodiversity-productivity studies: how to compare the productivity of multispecific plant mixtures to that of monocultures?
Biotic diversity and ecosystem processes: using the Ecotron to study a complex relationship
Declining biodiversity can alter the performance of ecosystems
COMMUNITIES of species and their associated biological, chemical and physical processes, collectively known as ecosystems, drive the Earth's biogeochemical processes1,2. Currently most ecosystems are…
Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: a mechanistic model.
  • M. Loreau
  • Environmental Science
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
  • 1998
TLDR
A mechanistic model of a spatially structured ecosystem in which plants compete for a limiting soil nutrient shows that plant species richness does not necessarily enhance ecosystem processes, but it identifies two types of factors that could generate such an effect: complementarity among species in the space they occupy below ground and positive correlation between mean resource-use intensity and diversity.
...
...