Life Sciences Commons^™

General Destabilizing Effects Of Eutrophication On Grassland Productivity At Multiple Spatial Scales, Yann Hautier, Pengfei Zhang, Michel Loreau, Kevin R. Wilcox, Eric W. Seabloom, Elizabeth T. Borer, Jarrett E. K. Byrnes, Sally E. Koerner, Kimberly J. Komatsu, Jonathan S. Lefcheck, Andy Hector, Peter B. Adler, Juan Alberti, Carlos A. Arnillas, Jonathan D. Bakker, Et Al.

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant diversity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant diversity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42 grasslands across the globe and quantify the effect of chronic fertilization on these relationships. Unfertilized local communities with more plant species exhibit greater asynchronous dynamics among species in response to natural environmental fluctuations, resulting in greater local stability (alpha stability). Moreover, neighborhood communities that have greater spatial variation in plant species …