Priority effects caused by plant order of arrival affect below‐ground productivity

Weidlich, Emanuela W. A.; Gillhaußen, Philipp von; Max, Johannes F. J.; Delory, Benjamin; Jablonowski, Nicolai David; Rascher, Uwe; Temperton, Vicky M.

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12829

Cited by 42 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…Overall, the evidence strongly suggests that if we want to have well‐functioning ecosystems that can be resistant or resilient especially in the face of climate change (Jaeschke et al ), we need to strive to have as many species with as many traits that differ from each other as possible in an ecosystem. Experiments that test the relevance of BEF outcomes for restoration have found that sowing more diverse seed mixtures (Bullock et al , ) or altering the order of arrival of plant functional groups (Weidlich et al , ) can lead to more productive but also diverse plant communities. This is an asset within extensively managed grasslands, since higher biodiversity is usually mutually exclusive to provisioning of crops and commodities in intensive agriculture (Cord et al ).…”

Section: Stepping Up To Create a Broad Scientific Basis For Large‐scamentioning

confidence: 99%

Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

Temperton

Buchmann

Buisson

et al. 2019

Restoration Ecology

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We currently face both an extinction and a biome crisis embedded in a changing climate. Many biodiverse ecosystems are being lost at far higher rates than they are being protected or ecologically restored. At the same time, natural climate solutions offer opportunities to restore biodiversity while mitigating climate change. The Bonn Challenge is a U.N. programme to restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change through restoration of the world's degraded landscapes. It provides an unprecedented chance for ecological restoration to become a linchpin tool for addressing many environmental issues. Unfortunately, the Forest and Landscape Restoration programme that underpins the Bonn Challenge, as its name suggests, remains focused on trees and forests, despite rising evidence that many non-forest ecosystems also offer strong restoration potential for biodiversity and climate mitigation. We see a need for restoration to step back to be more inclusive of different ecosystem types and to step up to provide integrated scientific knowledge to inform large-scale restoration. Stepping back and up will require assessments of where to restore what species, with recognition that in many landscapes multiple habitat types should be restored. In the process, trade-offs in the delivery of different ecosystem services (e.g. carbon, biodiversity, water, albedo, livestock forage) should be clearly addressed. We recommend that biodiversity safeguards be included in policy and implemented in practice, to avoid undermining the biophysical relationships that provide ecosystem resilience to climate change. For ecological restoration to contribute to international policy goals will require integrated large-scale science that works across biome boundaries.

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Section: Stepping Up To Create a Broad Scientific Basis For Large‐scamentioning

confidence: 99%

Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

Temperton

Buchmann

Buisson

et al. 2019

Restoration Ecology

Self Cite

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Plant species and functional group richness, however, are not the only drivers of ecosystem functioning in natural habitats. Both the order and timing of species arrival during community assembly can also have long‐lasting impacts on community structure and functioning (Fukami et al, ; Körner, Stöcklin, Reuther‐Thiébaud, & Pelaez‐Riedl, ; Švamberková, Doležal, & Lepš, ; Weidlich et al, , ; Wilsey, Barber, & Martin, ), as well as on the shape of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity (Fukami & Morin, ). This phenomenon is referred to as a priority effect and is a biotic component of historical contingency (Fukami, ; Grainger, Letten, Gilbert, & Fukami, ; Ke & Letten, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When history matters: The overlooked role of priority effects in grassland overyielding

et al. 2019

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Biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments have shown that plant species and functional group richness are important drivers of grassland productivity, but the impact that plant order of arrival (i.e. priority effects) has on grassland overyielding and its drivers (complementarity and dominance effects) has been overlooked so far. Using species‐specific plant biomass data collected in mixture and monoculture plots of a grassland field experiment (Jülich Priority Effect experiment) that manipulated the order of arrival of three plant functional groups (forbs, grasses and legumes), we quantified net biodiversity effects (overyielding) as well as complementarity and dominance effects in mixtures one and 2 years after sowing. In this experiment, priority effects were created by sowing one functional group 6 weeks before the two others. First, we tested whether plant order of arrival affected overyielding, complementarity and dominance effects. Second, we investigated whether the magnitude of net biodiversity, complementarity and dominance effects was dependent on the strength and direction of priority effects. We found that complementarity and dominance effects were affected by plant order of arrival during community assembly. In addition, we found that moving from negative to positive priority effects increased grassland overyielding, mainly via increased complementarity effects. These results highlight the need to combine biodiversity and assembly approaches in future ecosystem functioning research, as this will increase the predictive power of community ecology in conservation and ecological restoration. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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“…Negative interactions, driven by shifts in soil microbial community composition, can also result in historical contingency in plant dominance patterns after land use change (Kardol, Cornips, Van Kempen, Bakx-Schotman, & Van Der Putten, 2007). The order of arrival of plant functional groups can also have strong contingency effects on community development (Weidlich, von Gillhaussen, Max, et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of plant–soil feedbacks in stabilizing a reindeer‐induced vegetation shift in subarctic tundra

et al. 2018

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Herbivory can drive vegetation into different states of productivity and community composition, and these changes may be stable over time due to historical contingency effects. Interactions with abiotic and biotic soil components can contribute to such long‐term legacies in plant communities through stabilizing positive feedbacks. We studied the role of plant–soil feedbacks in maintaining vegetation changes caused by historical (~1350–1900 AD) reindeer herding in northern Sweden. These historical milking grounds (HMGs) consist of meadow plant communities formed in naturally nutrient‐poor heath or naturally nutrient‐rich shrub‐dominated vegetation and are still clearly visible in the landscape, a century after active use ceased. We selected two phytometer species: the forb Potentilla crantzii as representative of HMG vegetation, and the dwarf shrub Betula nana, as representative of control vegetation. We grew both species under glasshouse conditions on soils derived from replicated HMG and paired control plots, using live soils and sterilized (γ‐radiation)‐inoculated soils, to separate between biotic and abiotic soil effects. A net negative plant–soil feedback for B. nana biomass in its home (i.e., control) soil and a net positive feedback for P. crantzii in its home (i.e., HMG) soil in heath habitat was partly driven by the soil biotic community. However, abiotic differences in mineral nitrogen (N) concentrations between control and HMG soils were a stronger driver of differences in plant growth. Positive feedbacks maintaining a high mineral nutrient availability are thus important, especially in nutrient‐poor habitats. The positive plant responses to higher soil mineral N concentrations, combined with positive biotic plant–soil feedbacks, might shift the competitive balance in favour of typical HMG plant species, thereby contributing to stability of HMG plant communities. Our data indicate that herbivore‐driven changes in the interactions between plants and both biotic and abiotic components of the soil persist over long temporal scales. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13113/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Priority effects caused by plant order of arrival affect below‐ground productivity

Cited by 42 publications

References 37 publications

Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

When history matters: The overlooked role of priority effects in grassland overyielding

The role of plant–soil feedbacks in stabilizing a reindeer‐induced vegetation shift in subarctic tundra

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