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FOR 1451:  Exploring Mechanisms Underlying the Relationship between Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning

Subject Area Biology
Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine
Term from 2010 to 2020
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 163658437
 
We intend to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem processes based on the results of a long-term grassland biodiversity experiment that started in 2002. Sixty plant species, native and common to the Central European Arrhenatherum grasslands served as a species pool from which in the main experiment mixtures of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 60 plant species were assembled. The experiment yielded time-series data on a wide range of ecosystem processes, ranging from productivity, C-storage, and N-cycling to herbivory, pollination and decomposition.
For all plant species investigated, a large number of demographic, morphological and physiological variables were compiled and a phylogenetic tree was established. Based on these results, six approaches are proposed to understand why and how biodiversity affects particular ecosystem variables: (1) the sowing of a new trait-based experiment using a subset of the original plant species pool where species trait information is used to design plant communities and to predict species complementary, (2) the continuation of the data sets in the main experiment to study long-term dynamics and resilience of ecosystem variables, (3) tracer studies in the established plant communities to unravel belowground water and nitrogen partitioning among plant species, (4) an Ecotron experiment in a closed environment that includes the transfer of soil monoliths to the newly built ecotron facility in Montpellier, France, (5) an invasion experiment in the established communities and (6) a joint glasshouse experiment to measure species traits and interaction coefficients.
In order to explore how the mechanisms unravelled in the Jena Experiment drive ecosystem processes in natural and managed systems close relationships will be established with the biodiversity exploratories project focussing on managed grasslands in Germany, and the grassland management experiment of INRA Theix, France.
The present study is unique in comparison to other experiments of this type with respect to (1) the mechanistic investigation of species interactions, (2) the study of full element cycles of C, N and P and (3) the platform character of the experiment.
DFG Programme Research Units
International Connection Austria, Canada, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, USA

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