Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in a long-term non-weeded field experiment

Ecology
G F VeenT Martijn Bezemer

Abstract

Many grassland biodiversity experiments show a positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, however, in most of these experiments plant communities are established by sowing and natural colonization is prevented by selective weeding of non-sown species. During ecosystem restoration, for example on abandoned fields, plant communities start on bare soil, and diversity is often manipulated in a single sowing event. How such initial plant diversity manipulations influence plant biodiversity development and ecosystem functioning is not well understood. We examined how relationships between taxonomic and functional diversity, biomass production and stability develop over 16 yr in non-weeded plots sown with 15 species, four species, or that were not sown. We found that sown plant communities become functionally similar to unsown, naturally colonized plant communities. However, initial sowing treatments had long-lasting effects on species composition and taxonomic diversity. We found only few relationships between biomass production, or stability in biomass production, and functional or taxonomic diversity, and the ones we observed were negative. In addition, the cover of dominant plant species was positively r...Continue Reading

Associated Datasets

References

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