General Stabilizing Effects of Plant Diversity on Grassland Productivity at Multiple Sites Through Population Asynchrony and Overyielding

Héctor, Andy; Hautier, Yann; Saner, Philippe; Wacker, Luca; Bagchi, Robert; Joshi, Jasmin; Scherer‐Lorenzen, Michael; Spehn, Eva; Bazeley-White, E.; Weilenmann, Maja; Caldeira, Maria C.; Dimitrakopoulos, Panayiotis G.; Finn, John; Huss‐Danell, Kerstin; Jumpponen, Ari; Mulder, Christa P. H.; Palmborg, Cecilia; Pereira, João; Siamantziouras, A.-S. D.; Terry, Andrew; Troumbis, Andreas Y.; Schmid, Bernhard; Loreau, Michel

doi:10.1890/09-1162

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…Overyielding was found to contribute to the stabilization of productivity in different types of communities (Isbell, Polley & Wilsey ; Hector et al . ; Jucker et al . ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In general, diversity has been found to have a stabilizing effect on productivity at the community level, but a destabilizing effect at the population levels by increasing competitive interactions (Hector et al . ; Gross et al . ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the averaging effect, different biological mechanisms have been identified as possible causes of increasing the TS with regard to plant or tree species diversity. These include overyielding, species asynchrony and species interactions (Hector et al 2010;Loreau & de Mazancourt 2013;Bl€ uthgen et al 2016). Overyielding means higher productivity in mixtures than a weighted average of the corresponding monospecific systems caused by species interactions, which may lead to a stabilizing effect by a higher mean if the SD remains constant (Tilman 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Species interactions increase the temporal stability of community productivity in Pinus sylvestris–Fagus sylvatica mixtures across Europe

et al. 2017

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611. There is increasing evidence that species diversity enhances the temporal stability of 62 community productivity in different ecosystems, although its effect at population and tree 63 levels seems to be negative or neutral. Asynchrony between species was found to be one of 64 the main drivers of this stabilizing process. However, scarce research in this area has been 65 undertaken in forest communities, so determining the effect of species mixing on the stability 66 of forest productivity as well as the identity of the main drivers involved still poses a 67 challenging task. 3. Mixed stands showed a higher temporal stability of basal area growth than monospecific 76 stands at community level, but not at population or individual tree levels. Asynchrony 77 between species growth in mixtures was related to temporal stability, but neither overyielding 78 nor asynchrony between species growth in monospecific stands were linked to temporal 79 stability. Therefore, species interactions modify between-species asynchrony in mixed stands. 80Accordingly, temporal shifts in species interactions were related to asynchrony and to the 81 mixing effect on temporal stability. 4. Synthesis. Our findings confirm that species mixing can stabilize productivity at 83 community level whereas there is a neutral or negative effect on stability at population and 84 individual tree level. The contrasting findings as regards the relationships between temporal 85 stability and species asynchrony in mixed and monospecific stands suggest that the main 86 driver in the stabilizing process is the temporal niche complementarity between species rather 87 than differences in species specific responses to environmental conditions. 89 Keywords 91Temporal variability; mixed-species forests; plant-plant interactions; overyielding; 92 asynchrony; niche complementarity; organizational levels; 93 94

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“…Overyielding was found to contribute to the stabilization of productivity in different types of communities (Isbell, Polley & Wilsey ; Hector et al . ; Jucker et al . ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Species interactions increase the temporal stability of community productivity in Pinus sylvestris–Fagus sylvatica mixtures across Europe

et al. 2017

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“…We evaluated five potential mechanisms that could account for increased stability of herbivore communities at higher plant diversity: overyielding of herbivore abundance, decreasing covariance among herbivore populations, the Ôportfolio effectÕ, predator Ôtop-downÕ control, and host-plant effects (Tilman 1999). Overyielding could explain increased herbivore stability if, as plant diversity increased, herbivore abundances increased more rapidly than variation in their abundances (Hector et al 2010). Covariances among population fluctuations are driven by speciesÕ (dis)similar responses to environmental perturbations and by interspecific interactions (e.g., competition), and reduced covariance indicates higher temporal stability.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Controversy arose when modelling efforts posited that diversity can actually reduce, rather than increase, the stability within an ecosystem (May 1974;McCann 2000;). This spawned a flurry of theoretical and experimental research on diversity-stability relationships, and an increasing number of experimental studies indicate that diversity leads to stability in plant communities, with few exceptions (King & Pimm 1983;Tilman & Downing 1994;Lehman & Tilman 2000;Cottingham et al 2001;Pfisterer & Schmid 2002;Tilman et al 2006b;van Ruijven & Berendse 2007;Valone & Schutzenhofer 2007;Isbell et al 2009;Hector et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant diversity and the stability of foodwebs

et al. 2010

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Insect outbreaks in forest and agriculture monocultures led Charles Elton to propose, a half-century ago, that higher plant diversity stabilized animal foodweb dynamics in natural ecosystems. We tested this hypothesis by studying arthropod community dynamics in a long-term experimental manipulation of grassland plant species diversity. Over the course of a decade, we found that higher plant diversity increased the stability (i.e. lowered year-to-year variability) of a diverse (>700 species) arthropod community across trophic levels. As the number of plant species increased, the stability of both herbivore and predator species richness and of total herbivore abundance increased. The underlying mechanisms driving these diversity-stability relationships were plant diversity, via effects on primary productivity and plant community stability, and portfolio effects. Taken together, our results show that higher plant diversity provides more temporally consistent food and habitat resources to arthropod foodwebs. Consequently, actively managing for high plant diversity may have stronger than expected benefits for increasing animal diversity and controlling pest outbreaks.

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Identifying population‐ and community‐level mechanisms of diversity–stability relationships in experimental grasslands

Roscher¹,

Weigelt²,

Proulx³

et al. 2011

Journal of Ecology

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119

113

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Summary1. While positive effects of biodiversity on temporal stability of communities have been demonstrated in theoretical and empirical studies, diversity-stability relationships at the population level remain poorly understood. 2. We investigated temporal variability of plant populations in experimental grassland plots of varying species richness (1, 2, 4, 8, 16-60 species), functional group richness and composition (presence ⁄ absence of legumes · grasses · small herbs · tall herbs) in a long-term biodiversity experiment from 2003 to 2009 ('Jena Experiment'). 3. Average population stability, defined as the reciprocal of the coefficient of variation of aboveground biomass production over time, differed largely between species but was generally higher in grasses and small herbs than in legumes and tall herbs. Furthermore, population stability was positively related to a species' proportional contribution to community biomass. Thus, an increasing number of subordinate species explained lower average population stabilities at higher diversity levels. 4. A negative covariance (CV) across all species-richness levels suggested negatively correlated species dynamics. Species belonging to different functional groups fluctuated asynchronously, while species dynamics within functional groups were more synchronous. Community-wide species synchrony decreased with increasing species richness, and temporal stability at the community level increased. 5. Synthesis: Our results suggest that diversity-stability relationships are driven by fluctuations in the population biomass of individual species which are less synchronized in more diverse than in less diverse mixtures and monocultures. Dominant plant species tend to be more stabilized than subdominant species, independently of community species richness. However, asynchrony of population dynamics outweighs decreasing population stability with increasing species richness, resulting in higher temporal stability at the plant community level.

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General Stabilizing Effects of Plant Diversity on Grassland Productivity at Multiple Sites Through Population Asynchrony and Overyielding

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Species interactions increase the temporal stability of community productivity in Pinus sylvestris–Fagus sylvatica mixtures across Europe

Species interactions increase the temporal stability of community productivity in Pinus sylvestris–Fagus sylvatica mixtures across Europe

Plant diversity and the stability of foodwebs

Identifying population‐ and community‐level mechanisms of diversity–stability relationships in experimental grasslands

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