Long‐term study of root biomass in a biodiversity experiment reveals shifts in diversity effects over time
Open accessAbstract
Biodiversity experiments generally report a positive effect of plant biodiversity on aboveground biomass (overyielding), which typically increases with time. Various studies also found overyielding for belowground plant biomass, but this has never been measured over time. Also, potential underlying mechanisms have remained unclear. Differentiation in rooting patterns among plant species and plant functional groups has been proposed as a main driver of the observed biodiversity effect on belowground biomass, leading to more efficient belowground resource use with increasing diversity, but so far there is little evidence to support this. We analyzed standing root biomass and its distribution over the soil profile, along a 1–16 species richness gradient over eight years in the Jena Experiment in Germany, and compared belowground to aboveground overyielding. In our long‐term dataset, total root biomass increased with increasing species richness but this effect was only apparent after four years. The increasingly positive relationship between species richness and root biomass, explaining 12% of overall variation and up to 28% in the last year of our study, was mainly due to decreasing root biomass at low diversity over time. Functional group composition strongly affected total standing root biomass, explaining 44% of variation, with grasses and legumes having strong overall positive and negative effects, respectively. Functional group richness or interactions between functional group presences did not strongly contribute to overyielding. We found no support for the hypothesis that vertical root differentiation increases with species richness, with functional group richness or composition. Other explanations, such as stronger negative plant–soil feedbacks in low‐diverse plant communities on standing root biomass and vertical distribution should be considered.
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- Authors
- Ravenek, J. M., Bessler, H., Engels, C., Scherer‐Lorenzen, M., Gessler, A., Gockele, A., De Luca, E., Temperton, V. M., Ebeling, A., Roscher, C., Schmid, B., Weisser, W. W., Wirth, C., de Kroon, H., Weigelt, A., & Mommer, L.
- Affiliations
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- University of Freiburg (DE)
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH)
- Inst. of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, Univ. of Zürich Winterthurerstrasse 190 CH‐8057 Zürich Switzerland
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE)
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Dept of Experimental Plant Ecology Inst. for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud Univ. Heyendaalseweg 135 NL‐6525 AJ Nijmegen the Netherlands
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Oikos
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-06-04
- Volume
- 123
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1528-1536
- ISSN
- 0030-1299 (ISSN-L)
- 1600-0706
- OpenAlex
- W2104193931
- Cited by
- 258
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 26.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- research.wur.nl
- Locations
- Oikos (publishedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion)
- DORA WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research) (submittedVersion)
- JuSER (Forschungszentrum Jülich) (submittedVersion)
- mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Agronomic Practices and Intercropping Systems
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Keywords
- plant diversity, root biomass, species richness, overyielding, belowground biomass, aboveground biomass, plant functional groups, Poaceae, Fabaceae, vertical root distribution, plant-soil feedback, Jena Experiment
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