TY - JOUR

T1 - When history matters

T2 - The overlooked role of priority effects in grassland overyielding

AU - Delory, Benjamin

AU - Weidlich, Emanuela W. A.

AU - von Gillhaussen, Philipp

AU - Temperton, Vicky M.

N1 - We thank Marlene Mueller, Edelgard Schoelgens, Agnes Höltkemeier, and all the students and friends who helped to collect data from the Jülich Priority Effect experiment. We are grateful to Axel Knaps (Jülich Forschungszentrum) for providing the meteorological data presented in Figure S1 . We also thank Andreas Fichtner and Tadashi Fukami for their support and for providing constructive comments on the manuscript. The plant illustrations used in this paper were made by Carolina Levicek ( www.carolinalevicek.com ). The Jülich Priority Effect experiment was funded by IBG‐2 (Plant Sciences) Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. Emanuela Weidlich was the recipient of a PhD scholarship of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil (CNPq).

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments have shown that plant species and functional group richness are important drivers of grassland productivity, but the impact that plant order of arrival (i.e. priority effects) has on grassland overyielding and its drivers (complementarity and dominance effects) has been overlooked so far. Using species-specific plant biomass data collected in mixture and monoculture plots of a grassland field experiment (Julich Priority Effect experiment) that manipulated the order of arrival of three plant functional groups (forbs, grasses and legumes), we quantified net biodiversity effects (overyielding) as well as complementarity and dominance effects in mixtures one and 2 years after sowing. In this experiment, priority effects were created by sowing one functional group 6 weeks before the two others. First, we tested whether plant order of arrival affected overyielding, complementarity and dominance effects. Second, we investigated whether the magnitude of net biodiversity, complementarity and dominance effects was dependent on the strength and direction of priority effects. We found that complementarity and dominance effects were affected by plant order of arrival during community assembly. In addition, we found that moving from negative to positive priority effects increased grassland overyielding, mainly via increased complementarity effects. These results highlight the need to combine biodiversity and assembly approaches in future ecosystem functioning research, as this will increase the predictive power of community ecology in conservation and ecological restoration. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

AB - Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments have shown that plant species and functional group richness are important drivers of grassland productivity, but the impact that plant order of arrival (i.e. priority effects) has on grassland overyielding and its drivers (complementarity and dominance effects) has been overlooked so far. Using species-specific plant biomass data collected in mixture and monoculture plots of a grassland field experiment (Julich Priority Effect experiment) that manipulated the order of arrival of three plant functional groups (forbs, grasses and legumes), we quantified net biodiversity effects (overyielding) as well as complementarity and dominance effects in mixtures one and 2 years after sowing. In this experiment, priority effects were created by sowing one functional group 6 weeks before the two others. First, we tested whether plant order of arrival affected overyielding, complementarity and dominance effects. Second, we investigated whether the magnitude of net biodiversity, complementarity and dominance effects was dependent on the strength and direction of priority effects. We found that complementarity and dominance effects were affected by plant order of arrival during community assembly. In addition, we found that moving from negative to positive priority effects increased grassland overyielding, mainly via increased complementarity effects. These results highlight the need to combine biodiversity and assembly approaches in future ecosystem functioning research, as this will increase the predictive power of community ecology in conservation and ecological restoration. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

KW - additive partitioning

KW - biodiversity

KW - community assembly

KW - ecosystem functioning

KW - historical contingency

KW - plant order of arrival

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073921017&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/5d142545-d878-32e9-b981-d42b4f02a02c/

U2 - 10.1111/1365-2435.13455

DO - 10.1111/1365-2435.13455

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 33

SP - 2369

EP - 2380

JO - Functional Ecology

JF - Functional Ecology

SN - 0269-8463

IS - 12

ER -