Experimental drought reduces the productivity and stability of a calcareous grassland by Jackson, J, Middleton, S, Lawson, C, Jardine, E, Hawes, N, Maseyk, C, Salguero-Gomez, R, Hector, A

“…1. Grasslands, which encompass 40% of terrestrial ecosystems, hold global significance for food production, carbon storage, and other ecosystem services. …”

General destabilizing effects of eutrophication on grassland productivity at multiple spatial scales by Hautier, Y, Zhang, P, Loreau, M, Wilcox, KR, Seabloom, EW, Borer, ET, Byrnes, JEK, Koerner, SE, Komatsu, KJ, Lefcheck, JS, Hector, A, Adler, PB, Alberti, J, Arnillas, CA, Bakker, JD, Brudvig, LA, Bugalho, MN, Cadotte, M, Caldeira, MC, Carroll, O, Crawley, M, Collins, SL, Daleo, P, Dee, LE, Eisenhauer, N, Eskelinen, A, Fay, PA, Gilbert, B, Hansar, A, Isbell, F, Knops, JMH, MacDougall, AS, McCulley, RL, Moore, JL, Morgan, JW, Mori, AS, Peri, PL, Pos, ET, Power, SA, Price, JN, Reich, PB, Risch, AC, Roscher, C, Sankaran, M, Schütz, M, Smith, M, Stevens, C, Tognetti, PM, Virtanen, R, Wardle, GM

“…Our findings suggest that preserving grassland functional stability requires conservation of plant diversity within and among ecological communities.…”

Belowground nitrogen partitioning in experimental grassland plant communities of varying species richness. by von Felten, S, Hector, A, Buchmann, N, Niklaus, P, Schmid, B, Scherer-Lorenzen, M

“…In experimental communities of one, three, and six temperate grassland species in the field, we tested whether increasing species richness (1) decreases niche breadths of individual species, (2) decreases niche overlap among species, and (3) increases niche breadth of whole communities. …”

Plant diversity effects on grassland productivity are robust to both nutrient enrichment and drought by Craven, D, Isbell, F, Manning, P, Connolly, J, Bruelheide, H, Ebeling, A, Roscher, C, van Ruijven, J, Weigelt, A, Wilsey, B, Beierkuhnlein, C, de Luca, E, Griffin, J, Hautier, Y, Hector, A, Jentsch, A, Kreyling, J, Lanta, V, Loreau, M, Meyer, S, Mori, A, Naeem, S, Palmborg, C, Polley, H, Reich, P, Schmid, B, Siebenkäs, A, Seabloom, E, Thakur, M, Tilman, D, Vogel, A, Eisenhauer, N

“…Our results indicate that diversity and the complementarity of species are important regulators of grassland ecosystem productivity, regardless of changes in other drivers of ecosystem function.…”

Do grassland plant communities profit from N partitioning by soil depth? by Von Felten, S, Niklaus, P, Scherer-Lorenzen, M, Hector, A, Buchmann, N

“…Recent biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments in temperate grasslands have shown that productivity positively correlates with plant species richness. …”

General stabilizing effects of plant diversity on grassland productivity through population asynchrony and overyielding. by Hector, A, Hautier, Y, Saner, P, Wacker, L, Bagchi, R, Joshi, J, Scherer-Lorenzen, M, Spehn, E, Bazeley-White, E, Weilenmann, M, Caldeira, M, Dimitrakopoulos, P, Finn, J, Huss-Danell, K, Jumpponen, A, Mulder, C, Palmborg, C, Pereira, J, Siamantziouras, A, Terry, A, Troumbis, A, Schmid, B, Loreau, M

“…Our results support a stabilizing effect of diversity on the temporal variability of grassland aboveground annual net primary production through two mechanisms. …”

BUGS in the analysis of biodiversity experiments: species richness and composition are of similar importance for grassland productivity by Hector, A, Bell, T, Hautier, Y, Isbell, F, Kéry, M, Reich, P, Van Ruijven, J, Schmid, B

“…In this paper we assess the relative importance of species richness and species composition in a multilevel model analysis of net aboveground biomass production in grassland biodiversity experiments by estimating variance components for all explanatory variables. …”

Community diversity and invasion resistance: An experimental test in a grassland ecosystem and a review of comparable studies by Hector, A, Dobson, K, Minns, A, Bazeley-White, E, Lawton, J

“…The relationship between community diversity and invasion resistance in a grassland was examined using experimental plant assemblages that varied in species richness and composition. …”

Short-range multispectral imaging is an inexpensive, fast, and accurate approach to estimate biodiversity in a temperate calcareous grassland by Jackson, J, Lawson, CS, Adelmant, C, Huhtala, E, Fernandes, P, Hodgson, R, King, H, Williamson, L, Maseyk, K, Hawes, N, Hector, A, Salguero-Gomez, R

“…We demonstrate the utility of multispectral radiance moments as an indicator of biodiversity in this temperate calcareous grassland at a fine spatial resolution using a widely available UAV monitoring system with a coarse spectral resolution. …”

Competition for light causes plant biodiversity loss after eutrophication. by Hautier, Y, Niklaus, P, Hector, A

“…Using experimental grassland plant communities, we found that addition of light to the grassland understory prevented the loss of biodiversity caused by eutrophication. …”

Multiple facets of biodiversity drive the diversity-stability relationship by Craven, D, Eisenhauer, N, Pearse, W, Hautier, Y, Roscher, C, Hector, A, sTABILITY group

“…A substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity–stability relationship remains unclear. …”

Effects of plant diversity on productivity strengthen over time due to trait-dependent shifts in species overyielding by Zheng, L, Barry, KE, Guerrero-Ramírez, NR, Craven, D, Reich, PB, Verheyen, K, Scherer-Lorenzen, M, Eisenhauer, N, Barsoum, N, Bauhus, J, Bruelheide, H, Cavender-Bares, J, Dolezal, J, Auge, H, Fagundes, MV, Ferlian, O, Fiedler, S, Forrester, DI, Ganade, G, Gebauer, T, Haase, J, Hajek, P, Hector, A, Hérault, B

“…Here, using data from 65 grassland and forest biodiversity experiments, we show that the temporal strength of diversity effects at the community scale is underpinned by temporal changes in the species that yield. …”

Diversity-dependent temporal divergence of ecosystem functioning in experimental ecosystems by Guerrero Ramírez, N, Craven, D, Reich, P, Ewel, J, Isbel, F, Koricheva, J, Parrotta, J, Auge, H, Erickson, H, Forrester, D, Hector, A, Joshi, J, Montagnini, F, Palmborg, C, Piotto, D, Potvin, C, Roscher, C, van Ruijven, J, Tilman, D, Wilsey, B, Eisenhauer, N

“…The effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning generally increase over time, but the underlying processes remain unclear. Using 26 long-term grassland and forest experimental ecosystems, we demonstrate that biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships strengthen mainly by greater increases in functioning in high-diversity communities in grasslands and forests. …”

Impacts of species richness on productivity in a large-scale subtropical forest experiment by Huang, Y, Chen, Y, Castro-Izaguirre, N, Hector, A

“…Biodiversity experiments have shown that species loss reduces ecosystem functioning in grassland. To test whether this result can be extrapolated to forests, the main contributors to terrestrial primary productivity, requires large-scale experiments. …”

Watching grass grow: long-term visual navigation and mission planning for autonomous biodiversity monitoring by Gadd, M, De Martini, D, Pitt, L, Tubby, W, Towlson, M, Prahacs, C, Bartlett, O, Jackson, J, Qi, M, Newman, P, Hector, A, Salguero-Gómez, R, Hawes, N

“…The study site is dominated by dynamic grassland vegetation and is thus visually ambiguous and liable to drastic appearance change over the course of a day and especially through the growing season. …”

Biotic homogenization destabilizes ecosystem functioning by decreasing spatial asynchrony by Wang, S, Loreau, M, Mazancourt, C, Hector, A

“…Although the negative effects of local biodiversity (α diversity) loss on ecosystem stability are well documented, the consequences of biodiversity changes at larger spatial scales, in particular biotic homogenization, that is, reduced species turnover across space (β diversity), remain poorly known. Using data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments, we examine the effects of β diversity on the stability of simulated landscapes while controlling for potentially confounding biotic and abiotic factors. …”

Biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality. by Hector, A, Bagchi, R

“…Here we present an analysis of published data from grassland biodiversity experiments, and show that ecosystem multifunctionality does require greater numbers of species. …”

Quantifying effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning across times and places by Isbell, F, Cowles, J, Dee, L, Loreau, M, Reich, P, Gonzalez, A, Hector, A, Schmid, B

“…In a long‐term (18‐year) grassland plant diversity experiment, we find that total insurance effects are positive in sign and substantial in magnitude, amounting to 19% of the net biodiversity effect, mostly due to temporal insurance effects. …”

Increasing effects of chronic nutrient enrichment on plant diversity loss and ecosystem productivity over time by Seabloom, EW, Adler, PB, Alberti, J, Biederman, L, Buckley, YM, Cadotte, MW, Collins, SL, Dee, L, Fay, PA, Firn, J, Hagenah, N, Harpole, WS, Hautier, Y, Hector, A, Hobbie, SE, Isbell, F, Knops, JMH, Komatsu, KJ, Laungani, R, MacDougall, A, McCulley, RL, Moore, JL, Morgan, JW, Ohlert, T, Prober, SM, Risch, AC, Schuetz, M, Stevens, CJ, Borer, ET

“…Human activities are enriching many of Earth's ecosystems with biologically limiting mineral nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). In grasslands, this enrichment generally reduces plant diversity and increases productivity. …”

High plant diversity is needed to maintain ecosystem services. by Isbell, F, Calcagno, V, Hector, A, Connolly, J, Harpole, W, Reich, P, Scherer-Lorenzen, M, Schmid, B, Tilman, D, van Ruijven, J, Weigelt, A, Wilsey, B, Zavaleta, E, Loreau, M

“…Here we show that 84% of the 147 grassland plant species studied in 17 biodiversity experiments promoted ecosystem functioning at least once. …”