Plant community composition, not diversity, regulates soil respiration in grasslands.

Biology Letters
David JohnsonJ Philip Grime

Abstract

Soil respiration is responsible for recycling considerable quantities of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the richness of plants in a community can have significant impacts on ecosystem functioning, but the specific influences of plant species richness (SR), plant functional-type richness and plant community composition on soil respiration rates are unknown. Here we use 10-year-old model plant communities, comprising mature plants transplanted into natural non-sterile soil, to determine how the diversity and composition of plant communities influence soil respiration rates. Our analysis revealed that soil respiration was driven by plant community composition and that there was no significant effect of biodiversity at the three levels tested (SR, functional group and species per functional group). Above-ground plant biomass and root density were included in the analysis as covariates and found to have no effect on soil respiration. This finding is important, because it suggests that loss of particular species will have the greatest impact on soil respiration, rather than changes in biodiversity per se.

References

Sep 27, 2005·Journal of Biosciences·Wei WangTakehisa Oikawa

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Citations

May 12, 2012·Environmental Management·Guangxuan HanYongjun Gao
Feb 20, 2010·Oecologia·André Tavares Corrêa DiasFrank Berendse
Jan 8, 2014·Ecology Letters·Alexandru MilcuJacques Roy
Nov 12, 2020·The Science of the Total Environment·Yinzhan LiuChengming You

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