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General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales.

ABSTRACT: Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant diversity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant diversity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42 grasslands across the globe and quantify the effect of chronic fertilization on these relationships. Unfertilized local communities with more plant species exhibit greater asynchronous dynamics among species in response to natural environmental fluctuations, resulting in greater local stability (alpha stability). Moreover, neighborhood communities that have greater spatial variation in plant species composition within sites (higher beta diversity) have greater spatial asynchrony of productivity among communities, resulting in greater stability at the larger scale (gamma stability). Importantly, fertilization consistently weakens the contribution of plant diversity to both of these stabilizing mechanisms, thus diminishing the positive effect of biodiversity on stability at differing spatial scales. Our findings suggest that preserving grassland functional stability requires conservation of plant diversity within and among ecological communities.

SUBMITTER: Hautier Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7585434 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales.

Hautier Yann Y Zhang Pengfei P Loreau Michel M Wilcox Kevin R KR Seabloom Eric W EW Borer Elizabeth T ET Byrnes Jarrett E K JEK Koerner Sally E SE Komatsu Kimberly J KJ Lefcheck Jonathan S JS Hector Andy A Adler Peter B PB Alberti Juan J Arnillas Carlos A CA Bakker Jonathan D JD Brudvig Lars A LA Bugalho Miguel N MN Cadotte Marc M Caldeira Maria C MC Carroll Oliver O Crawley Mick M Collins Scott L SL Daleo Pedro P Dee Laura E LE Eisenhauer Nico N Eskelinen Anu A Fay Philip A PA Gilbert Benjamin B Hansar Amandine A Isbell Forest F Knops Johannes M H JMH MacDougall Andrew S AS McCulley Rebecca L RL Moore Joslin L JL Morgan John W JW Mori Akira S AS Peri Pablo L PL Pos Edwin T ET Power Sally A SA Price Jodi N JN Reich Peter B PB Risch Anita C AC Roscher Christiane C Sankaran Mahesh M Schütz Martin M Smith Melinda M Stevens Carly C Tognetti Pedro M PM Virtanen Risto R Wardle Glenda M GM Wilfahrt Peter A PA Wang Shaopeng S

Nature communications 20201023 1

Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant diversity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant diversity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42 grasslands across the globe and quantify the effect of chronic fertilization on these relationships. Unfertilized local communities with more plant s ...[more]

PMID: 33097736

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General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales.

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General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales.

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