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Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes.

  • Isbell F Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.
  • Craven D German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  • Connolly J Ecological and Environmental Modelling Group, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
  • Loreau M Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Experimental Ecology Station, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Moulis 09200, France.
  • Schmid B Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Beierkuhnlein C Department of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
  • Bezemer TM Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), PO Box 50, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
  • Bonin C Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA.
  • Bruelheide H German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  • de Luca E Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Ebeling A Institute of Ecology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Strasse 159, 07743 Jena, Germany.
  • Griffin JN Department of Biosciences, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA28PP, UK.
  • Guo Q USDA FS, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center, RTP, North Carolina 27709, USA.
  • Hautier Y Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands.
  • Hector A Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, UK.
  • Jentsch A Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
  • Kreyling J Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany.
  • Lanta V Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
  • Manning P Institute for Plant Sciences, University of Bern, CH-3013 Bern, Switzerland.
  • Meyer ST Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany.
  • Mori AS Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, 79-7 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 240-8501, Japan.
  • Naeem S Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.
  • Niklaus PA Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Polley HW US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, Texas 76502, USA.
  • Reich PB Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108 USA.
  • Roscher C German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  • Seabloom EW Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.
  • Smith MD Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA.
  • Thakur MP German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  • Tilman D Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.
  • Tracy BF Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, Smyth Hall 0404, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA.
  • van der Putten WH Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), PO Box 50, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
  • van Ruijven J Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.
  • Weigelt A German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
  • Weisser WW Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany.
  • Wilsey B Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA.
  • Eisenhauer N German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
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  • 2015-10-16
Published in:
  • Nature. - 2015
Biodiversity
Climate
Climate Change
Conservation of Natural Resources
Disasters
Droughts
Ecosystem
Grassland
Human Activities
Plant Physiological Phenomena
English It remains unclear whether biodiversity buffers ecosystems against climate extremes, which are becoming increasingly frequent worldwide. Early results suggested that the ecosystem productivity of diverse grassland plant communities was more resistant, changing less during drought, and more resilient, recovering more quickly after drought, than that of depauperate communities. However, subsequent experimental tests produced mixed results. Here we use data from 46 experiments that manipulated grassland plant diversity to test whether biodiversity provides resistance during and resilience after climate events. We show that biodiversity increased ecosystem resistance for a broad range of climate events, including wet or dry, moderate or extreme, and brief or prolonged events. Across all studies and climate events, the productivity of low-diversity communities with one or two species changed by approximately 50% during climate events, whereas that of high-diversity communities with 16-32 species was more resistant, changing by only approximately 25%. By a year after each climate event, ecosystem productivity had often fully recovered, or overshot, normal levels of productivity in both high- and low-diversity communities, leading to no detectable dependence of ecosystem resilience on biodiversity. Our results suggest that biodiversity mainly stabilizes ecosystem productivity, and productivity-dependent ecosystem services, by increasing resistance to climate events. Anthropogenic environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss thus seem likely to decrease ecosystem stability, and restoration of biodiversity to increase it, mainly by changing the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate events.
Language
  • English
Open access status
green
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Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/173394
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