A landscape‐scale assessment of the relationship between grassland functioning, community diversity, and functional traits

Ecology and Evolution

Hanneke van 'tVeen¹  Yann Hautier²  Nadine Sandau³  Loïc Chalmandrier⁴  Achilleas Psomas⁵  Michael P. Nobis⁵  Loïc Pellissier⁵  Patrice Descombes⁵ 

[1] Earth System Science Department of Geography University of Zurich (UZH) Zürich Switzerland;Ecology and Biodiversity Group Department of Biology Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands;LANAT Amt für Landwirtschaft und Natur Münsingen Switzerland;School of Biological Sciences University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand;Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf Switzerland;

关键词: BEF;    biodiversity;    drought;    ecosystem functioning;    ecosystem services;    grasslands;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.6650

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract Livestock farmers rely on a high and stable grassland productivity for fodder production to sustain their livelihoods. Future drought events related to climate change, however, threaten grassland functionality in many regions across the globe. The introduction of sustainable grassland management could buffer these negative effects. According to the biodiversity–productivity hypothesis, productivity positively associates with local biodiversity. The biodiversity–insurance hypothesis states that higher biodiversity enhances the temporal stability of productivity. To date, these hypotheses have mostly been tested through experimental studies under restricted environmental conditions, hereby neglecting climatic variations at a landscape‐scale. Here, we provide a landscape‐scale assessment of the contribution of species richness, functional composition, temperature, and precipitation on grassland productivity. We found that the variation in grassland productivity during the growing season was best explained by functional trait composition. The community mean of plant preference for nutrients explained 24.8% of the variation in productivity and the community mean of specific leaf area explained 18.6%, while species richness explained only 2.4%. Temperature and precipitation explained an additional 22.1% of the variation in productivity. Our results indicate that functional trait composition is an important predictor of landscape‐scale grassland productivity.

【 授权许可】

Unknown