Monocultures

(established in 2002 and 2016)

All 60 species of the Main Experiment (Rogscher et al. 2004) are grown in monocultures on small area plots (1 m x 1 m). One set of monocultures was established in 2002 with the Main Experiment. A second set of monocultures of all target species was established in 2016 with the ΔBEF Experiment. In accordance with Treatment 1 (no soil history, no plant history), the soil of the new monoculture plots was replaced by soil of an adjacent arable field, and the plots were sown with seeds from the same seed supplier as done in 2002, resulting in 120 monoculture plots.

Monocultures of each species are a pre-requisite in the study of overyielding, for the a-posteriori separation of sampling and complementarity effects at the species level. Additionally, the monocultures are used to measure plant species-specific traits.