{"id":4195,"date":"2023-03-16T09:45:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T09:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/?p=4195"},"modified":"2023-03-16T09:48:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T09:48:21","slug":"linking-plant-diversity-productivity-relationships-to-plant-functional-traits-of-dominant-species-and-changes-in-soil-properties-in-15-year-old-experimental-grasslands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/2023\/03\/16\/linking-plant-diversity-productivity-relationships-to-plant-functional-traits-of-dominant-species-and-changes-in-soil-properties-in-15-year-old-experimental-grasslands\/","title":{"rendered":"New publication from Dietrich et al. in Ecology and Evolution: Linking plant diversity\u2013productivity relationships to plant functional traits of dominant species and changes in soil properties in 15-year-old experimental grasslands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"justify\">Positive plant diversity\u2013productivity relationships are known to be  driven by complementary resource use via differences in plant functional  traits. Moreover, soil properties related to nutrient availability were  shown to change with plant diversity over time; however, it is not  well-understood whether and how such plant diversity-dependent soil  changes and associated changes in functional traits contribute to  positive diversity\u2013productivity relationships in the long run. To test  this, we investigated plant communities of different species richness  (1, 2, 6, and 9 species) in a 15-year-old grassland biodiversity  experiment. We determined community biomass production and biodiversity  effects (net biodiversity [NEs], complementarity [CEs], and selection  effects [SEs]), as well as community means of plant functional traits  and soil properties. First, we tested how these variables changed along  the plant diversity gradient and were related to each other. Then, we  tested for direct and indirect effects of plant and soil variables  influencing community biomass production and biodiversity effects.  Community biomass production, NEs, CEs, SEs, plant height, root length  density (RLD), and all soil property variables changed with plant  diversity and the presence of the dominant grass species <em>Arrhenatherum elatius<\/em>  (increase except for soil pH, which decreased). Plant height and RLD  for plant functional traits, and soil pH and organic carbon  concentration for soil properties, were the variables with the strongest  influence on biomass production and biodiversity effects. Our results  suggest that plant species richness and the presence of the dominant  species, <em>A. elatius<\/em>, cause soil organic carbon to increase and  soil pH to decrease over time, which increases nutrient availability  favoring species with tall growth and dense root systems, resulting in  higher biomass production in species-rich communities. Here, we present  an additional process that contributes to the strengthening positive  diversity\u2013productivity relationship, which may play a role alongside the  widespread plant functional trait-based explanation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Reference:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Dietrich, P., Eisenhauer, N. and Roscher, C. (2023) Linking plant  diversity\u2013productivity relationships to plant functional traits of  dominant species and changes in soil properties in 15-year-old  experimental grasslands, <em>Ecology and Evolution<\/em>, 13(3), p. e9883. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/ece3.9883\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/ece3.9883<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Positive plant diversity\u2013productivity relationships are known to be driven by complementary resource use via differences in plant functional traits. Moreover, soil properties related to nutrient availability were shown to change&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4197,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/4197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}