Hidden diversity and productivity patterns in mixed Mediterranean grasslands

Troumbis, Andreas Y.; Dimitrakopoulos, Panayiotis G.; Siamantziouras, Akis‐Stavros D.; Memtsas, Dimitris

doi:10.1034/j.1600-0706.2000.900313.x

Cited by 44 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Originally, it was also presumed that selection effects would grow stronger through time as the most productive species came to dominance in polyculture (16). However, the fact that selection effects are often negative led some to argue that, as the least productive species come to dominate a community through time, complementarity must grow disproportionately strong to generate transgressive overyielding (22,24,30,31,43,44). Our analyses confirm that complementarity tends to increase through time, but they do not support the idea that selection effects change through time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity

Cardinale

Wright

Cadotte

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

1,295

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Accelerating rates of species extinction have prompted a growing number of researchers to manipulate the richness of various groups of organisms and examine how this aspect of diversity impacts ecological processes that control the functioning of ecosystems. We summarize the results of 44 experiments that have manipulated the richness of plants to examine how plant diversity affects the production of biomass. We show that mixtures of species produce an average of 1.7 times more biomass than species monocultures and are more productive than the average monoculture in 79% of all experiments. However, in only 12% of all experiments do diverse polycultures achieve greater biomass than their single most productive species. Previously, a positive net effect of diversity that is no greater than the most productive species has been interpreted as evidence for selection effects, which occur when diversity maximizes the chance that highly productive species will be included in and ultimately dominate the biomass of polycultures. Contrary to this, we show that although productive species do indeed contribute to diversity effects, these contributions are equaled or exceeded by species complementarity, where biomass is augmented by biological processes that involve multiple species. Importantly, both the net effect of diversity and the probability of polycultures being more productive than their most productive species increases through time, because the magnitude of complementarity increases as experiments are run longer. Our results suggest that experiments to date have, if anything, underestimated the impacts of species extinction on the productivity of ecosystems.biodiversity ͉ ecosystem function ͉ extinction ͉ productivity ͉ sampling effect

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity

Cardinale

Wright

Cadotte

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

1,295

119

1,232

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“…Although, as we acknowledged in our report, our biomass patterns were partly generated by the effects of random sampling of species (1,22,23), wide reporting of other biodiversity function studies suggests that it is not appropriate to dismiss sampling effects as "artifacts" (24 -30). Rather, sampling effects can be considered results of random assembly or disassembly arising from the combination of probabilistic processes inherently associated with numerical components of diversity, differences in the biological traits of species, and ecological mechanisms that change abundances.…”

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confidence: 94%

No Consistent Effect of Plant Diversity on Productivity

Huston

Aarssen

Austin

et al. 2000

Science

302

248

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“…In some cases certain sites were unusual, e.g., Portugal experienced a strong external effect from a dry period and particularly frosty winter. Greece showed no or little effect of diversity on aboveground biomass production (see also Troumbis et al 2000) and on most of the measured ecosystem processes, except for cotton decomposition where it showed the strongest effect of species richness. The fact that diversity had no effect on biomass at our least productive site (Greece) and increased with aboveground production, is consistent with Fridley (2002Fridley ( , 2003, who found that effects of experimental diversity gradients on productivity significantly increased with soil fertility (but see Kenkel et al 2000).…”

Section: Variation Of Diversity Effects With Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increase in cotton decomposition with greater diversity was clearly mainly driven by a strong relationship only at the Greek site. This is a good example of different processes responding differently to changes in diversity, since in Greece, where plants grew on an unusual soil high in Mg 2ϩ , Ca 2ϩ and very low in PO 4 3Ϫ (see Supplement), aboveground production and many other processes were largely unaffected (Troumbis et al 2000). In general, direct plant-diversity effects on processes such as wood decomposition would imply niche differentiation between plant species influencing this particular process (Lawton 2000).…”

Section: Linking Diversity Effects To Different Ecosystem Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sites differed widely in climate, soil conditions, and other major environmental factors (Hector et al 1999, Joshi et al 2001. For more detailed information on single sites, for Switzerland see Diemer et al (1997), Joshi et al (2000), Koricheva et al (2000), Spehn et al (2000a, b), Stephan et al (2000), Diemer and Schmid (2001), Pfisterer et al (2004); for Sweden see Mulder et al (1999Mulder et al ( , 2002, Koricheva et al (2000), and Jumpponen et al (2002); for Germany see Gastine et al (2003) and Scherer-Lorenzen et al (2003); for Greece see Troumbis et al (2000Troumbis et al ( , 2002; for Portugal see Caldeira et al (2001); and for Silwood see Hector et al (2000aHector et al ( , 2001a.…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecosystem Effects of Biodiversity Manipulations in European Grasslands

Spehn

Héctor

Joshi

et al. 2005

Ecological Monographs

468

425

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Ecosystem effects of biodiversity manipulations in European grasslands AbstractWe present a multisite analysis of the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning within the European BIODEPTH network of plant-diversity manipulation experiments. We report results of the analysis of 11 variables addressing several aspects of key ecosystem processes like biomass production, resource use (space, light, and nitrogen), and decomposition, measured across three years in plots of varying plant species richness at eight different European grassland field sites. Differences among sites explained substantial and significant amounts of the variation of most of the ecosystem processes examined. However, against this background of geographic variation, all the aspects of plant diversity and composition we examined (i.e., both numbers and types of species and functional groups) produced significant, mostly positive impacts on ecosystem processes.Analyses using the additive partitioning method revealed that complementarity effects (greater net yields than predicted from monocultures due to resource partitioning, positive interactions, etc.) were stronger and more consistent than selection effects (the covariance between monoculture yield and change in yield in mixtures) caused by dominance of species with particular traits. In general, communities with a higher diversity of species and functional groups were more productive and utilized resources more completely by intercepting more light, taking up more nitrogen, and occupying more of the available space. Diversity had significant effects through both increased vegetation cover and greater nitrogen retention by plants when this resource was more abundant through N2 fixation by legumes. However, additional positive diversity effects remained even after controlling for differences in vegetation cover and for the presence of legumes in communities. Diversity effects were stronger on above-than belowground processes. In particular, clear diversity effects on decomposition were only observed at one of the eight sites.The ecosystem effects of plant diversity also varied between sites and years. In general, diversity effects were lowest in the first year and stronger later in the experiment, indicating that they were not transitional due to community establishment. These analyses of our complete ecosystem process data set largely reinforce our previous results, and those from comparable biodiversity experiments, and extend the generality of diversity-ecosystem functioning relationships to multiple sites, years, and processes. Abstract. We present a multisite analysis of the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning within the European BIODEPTH network of plant-diversity manipulation experiments. We report results of the analysis of 11 variables addressing several aspects of key ecosystem processes like biomass production, resource use (space, light, and nitrogen), and decomposition, measured across three years in plots of varying plant species ri...

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Hidden diversity and productivity patterns in mixed Mediterranean grasslands

Cited by 44 publications

References 30 publications

Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity

Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity

No Consistent Effect of Plant Diversity on Productivity

Ecosystem Effects of Biodiversity Manipulations in European Grasslands

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