Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2008
Can complementarity in water use help to explain diversity-productivity relationships in experimental grassland plots?
Verheyen, Kris; Bulteel, Hugo; Palmborg, Cecilia; Olivie, Bert; Nijs, Ivan; Raes, Dirk; Muys, BartAbstract
Positive diversity-productivity relationships have repeatedly been found in experimental grassland plots, but mechanistic explanations are still under debate. We tested whether complementarity for the exploitation of the soil water resource helps to explain these relationships. In the dry summer of 2003, evapotranspiration (ET) was assessed at the Swedish BIODEPTH site using two different approaches: snapshot measurements of canopy surface temperature and simulation of time-accumulated ET by means of a soil water balance model. More diverse plots were characterized by lower surface temperatures and higher accumulated ET. Transgressive overyielding tests revealed that ET in polycultures was higher than in the best-performing monocultures, but this pattern was reversed at high degrees of water stress. Our results indicate that a more complete exploitation of soil water by more diverse grassland systems is on the one hand likely to be a driver for their increased biomass production, but on the other hand causes the more diverse communities to be affected earlier by drought. Nevertheless, the results also suggest that productivity may (at least partially) be maintained under dry conditions due to the higher likelihood of including drought-tolerant species in the more diverse communities.Keywords
ecosystem functioning; niche differentiation; evapotranspiration; canopy surface temperature; soil water balancePublished in
Oecologia2008, volume: 156, number: 2, pages: 351-361
Publisher: SPRINGER
Authors' information
Verheyen, Kris
Ghent University
Bulteel, Hugo
University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden
Olivié, Bert
University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
Nijs, Ivan
University of Antwerp
Raes, Dirk
University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
Muys, Bart
University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-0998-x
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/19295