Diversity promotes temporal stability across levels of ecosystem organization in experimental grasslands

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Raphaël Proulx
  • Christian Wirth
  • Winfried Voigt
  • Alexandra Weigelt
  • Christiane Roscher
  • Sabine Attinger
  • Jussi Baade
  • Romain L. Barnard
  • Nina Buchmann
  • François Buscot
  • Nico Eisenhauer
  • Markus Fischer
  • Gerd Gleixner
  • Stefan Halle
  • Anke Hildebrandt
  • Esther Kowalski
  • Annely Kuu
  • Markus Lange
  • Alex Milcu
  • Pascal A. Niklaus
  • Yvonne Oelmann
  • Stephan Rosenkranz
  • Alexander Sabais
  • Christoph Scherber
  • Michael Scherer-Lorenzen
  • Stefan Scheu
  • Ernst Detlef Schulze
  • Jens Schumacher
  • Guido Schwichtenberg
  • Jean François Soussana
  • Wolfgang W. Weisser
  • Wolfgang Wilcke
  • Bernhard Schmid

The diversity-stability hypothesis states that current losses of biodiversity can impair the ability of an ecosystem to dampen the effect of environmental perturbations on its functioning. Using data from a long-term and comprehensive biodiversity experiment, we quantified the temporal stability of 42 variables characterizing twelve ecological functions in managed grassland plots varying in plant species richness. We demonstrate that diversity increases stability i) across trophic levels (producer, consumer), ii) at both the system (community, ecosystem) and the component levels (population, functional group, phylogenetic clade), and iii) primarily for aboveground rather than belowground processes. Temporal synchronization across studied variables was mostly unaffected with increasing species richness. This study provides the strongest empirical support so far that diversity promotes stability across different ecological functions and levels of ecosystem organization in grasslands.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere13382
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume5
Issue number10
Number of pages8
ISSN1932-6203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13.10.2010
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

The Jena Experiment is funded by the German Science Foundation (FOR 456) with additional support from the Max Planck Society and the Friedrich
Schiller University Jena. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

    Research areas

  • Biology - species diversity, biodiversity, biomass, community ecology
  • Ecosystems Research - ecosystem functioning, plants, species interactions, Invasive species

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