The influence of species diversity on ecosystem productivity: how, where, and why?

Fridley, Jason D.

doi:10.1034/j.1600-0706.2001.930318.x

Cited by 286 publications

(325 citation statements)

References 83 publications

(120 reference statements)

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“…This supports the hypothesis that greater functional diversity can lead to facilitation or complementarity (Hooper 1998, Fridley 2001, Hooper and Dukes 2004. Although the ideas of complementarity and facilitation have traditionally been discussed in the context of mixtures of species (Fridley 2001), there is no reason to think that these same relationships might not also apply to mixtures of cultivars of the same species with physical, physiological, and phenological differences (Newton et al 2009). Our data suggest that as Fig.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Cultivar diversity as a means of ecologically intensifying dry matter production in a perennial forage stand

2014

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Abstract. The relationship between genotypic diversity and productivity has not been adequately explored in perennial forage production systems despite strong theoretical and empirical evidence supporting diversity's role in ecosystem functioning in other managed and unmanaged systems. We conducted a two-year field experiment with six cultivars of an agriculturally important forage grass, Lolium perenne L. (perennial ryegrass). Dry matter production of L. perenne and the weed community that emerged from the soil seed bank were measured each year in treatments that ranged from cultivar monocultures to three-and six-way cultivar mixtures, all sown at a constant seeding rate. Mean L. perenne dry matter production increased with increasing cultivar diversity and was highest in mixtures that contained cultivars representing the greatest additive trait range (calculated on rankings of three traits: winter hardiness, heading date, and tolerance to grazing). Mixtures had greater yields than those predicted by the mean of their component monoculture yields, but there was evidence that highly productive cultivars may have dampened over-yielding in mixtures. Weed abundance was correlated with L. perenne dry matter, but not L. perenne cultivar diversity. These results suggest that multi-cultivar mixtures may have utility as an approach to ecologically intensifying perennial forage production. Additional research will be necessary to determine the mechanisms responsible for the over-yielding observed in this study and the generality of these findings.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Cultivar diversity as a means of ecologically intensifying dry matter production in a perennial forage stand

2014

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“…The nonlinear response of biovolume to SR implies different underlying mechanisms along the SR gradient. There is ample research pointing to positive species interactions (complementarity or facilitation) and sampling effect (the likelihood that a highly productive species is a member of the community) as the mechanisms driving the positive relationship between biomass and SR (Fridley 2001;Loreau et al 2001;Tilman et al 2001;Hooper et al 2005).We are not aware of any observation on biomass or productivity decline at higher SR and consequently of any theoretical work on the nature of such a relationship. We hypothesize that negative species interactions, involving increased competition due to niche overlap, govern the dynamics of species-rich communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Are algal communities driven toward maximum biomass?

Passy

Legendre

2006

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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In this continental-scale study, we show that in major benthic and planktonic stream habitats, algal biovolume-a proxy measure of biomass-is a unimodal function of species richness (SR). The biovolume peak is observed at intermediate to high SR in the benthos but at low richness in the phytoplankton. The unimodal nature of the biomass-diversity relationship implies that a decline in algal biomass with potential harmful effects on all higher trophic levels, from invertebrates to fish, can result from either excessive species gain or species loss, both being common consequences of human-induced habitat alterations. SR frequency distributions indicate that the most frequent richness is habitat-specific and significantly higher in the benthos than in the plankton. In all studied stream environments, the most frequent SR is lower than the SR that yields the highest biovolume, probably as a result of anthropogenic influences, but always within one standard deviation from it, i.e. they are statistically indistinguishable. This suggests that algal communities may be driven toward maximum biomass.

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“…RYT Ͼ 1 indicates complementarity. RYT was originally proposed as the most appropriate measure of niche complementarity (35) and is one of the most common metrics for assessing overyielding (27). It is a robust measure when planting densities give constant final yield, sufficient time has been allowed for interactions to develop, and indices are calculated on a yield per area basis rather than as yield per individual (21,36,37).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Facilitation may also be important: direct positive interactions have been demonstrated in many experiments (26). However, the main mechanism addressed in biodiversityproductivity experiments so far is nutrient enrichment by nitrogen fixers (27). Assessing the performance of individual species is crucial for understanding which mechanisms are responsible for the positive effect of diversity on productivity.…”

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confidence: 99%

Diversity–productivity relationships: Initial effects, long-term patterns, and underlying mechanisms

Ruijven

Berendse

2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

367

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A common pattern emerging from studies on the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning is that productivity increases with diversity. Most of these studies have been carried out in perennial grasslands, but many lasted only two growing seasons or reported data from a single year. Especially for perennial plant communities, however, the long-term effects of diversity are important. The question whether interactions between few species or among many species lead to increased productivity remained largely unanswered. So far, the main mechanism addressed is the increased input of nitrogen by nitrogenfixing legumes. We report that other mechanisms can also generate strong increases of productivity with diversity. Results from 4 consecutive years of a plant diversity experiment without legumes show that a positive relationship between plant species richness and productivity emerged in the second year and strengthened with time. We show that increased nutrient use efficiency at high species richness is an important underlying mechanism. This mechanism had not been discussed in earlier studies. Furthermore, our results suggest that complementary nutrient uptake in space and time is important. Together, these mechanisms sustain consistently high productivity at high diversity.biodiversity ͉ niche complementarity ͉ nitrogen use efficiency ͉ ecosystem functioning T he notion that the current loss of biodiversity may be detrimental to ecosystem functioning has led to major experiments in the last decade. Studies investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning focused on the effects of losses of plant diversity on productivity (as a measure of ecosystem functioning) in grasslands. In these studies, productivity often declined with diversity loss (1), although several different patterns have been reported, including no response and idiosyncratic differences as plant diversity decreases (see ref. 2 for a review).Both the patterns and the underlying mechanisms have been hotly debated (3-5, †, ‡). A positive relationship between diversity and productivity could arise through causal mechanisms such as facilitation or complementary resource use (6, 7). However, the same relationship between productivity and diversity could also be generated by chance, through a sampling or selection effect. More diverse plant communities have a higher chance of including a highly productive species that dominates the community (3, 4, 7). Complementarity and sampling effects may operate simultaneously, but can be separated by using the additive partitioning equation (8).A positive effect of diversity on productivity was reported by several experiments, but most of these studies have been short term (Ͻ3 years) or reported results from a single growing season (9-18). In perennial grasslands, interactions between species occur over multiple years, but only three experiments reported results from a period Ͼ3 years. They showed that the positive effects of diversity increased several years after the st...

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The influence of species diversity on ecosystem productivity: how, where, and why?

Cited by 286 publications

References 83 publications

Cultivar diversity as a means of ecologically intensifying dry matter production in a perennial forage stand

Cultivar diversity as a means of ecologically intensifying dry matter production in a perennial forage stand

Are algal communities driven toward maximum biomass?

Diversity–productivity relationships: Initial effects, long-term patterns, and underlying mechanisms

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