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Multiple facets of biodiversity drive the diversity–stability relationship

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 1579–1587 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

A substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity–stability relationship remains unclear. Here we use data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments and structural equation modelling to investigate the roles of species richness, phylogenetic diversity and both the diversity and community-weighted mean of functional traits representing the ‘fast–slow’ leaf economics spectrum in driving the diversity–stability relationship. We found that high species richness and phylogenetic diversity stabilize biomass production via enhanced asynchrony in the performance of co-occurring species. Contrary to expectations, low phylogenetic diversity enhances ecosystem stability directly, albeit weakly. While the diversity of fast–slow functional traits has a weak effect on ecosystem stability, communities dominated by slow species enhance ecosystem stability by increasing mean biomass production relative to the standard deviation of biomass over time. Our in-depth, integrative assessment of factors influencing the diversity–stability relationship demonstrates a more multicausal relationship than has been previously acknowledged.

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Fig. 1: Relationships among ecosystem stability, plant species richness and species asynchrony across experimental grasslands.
Fig. 2: Relationships among ecosystem stability, phylogenetic and fast-slow functional diversity, and the community-weighted mean of fast–slow traits across experimental grasslands.
Fig. 3: Direct and indirect effects of multiple facets of biodiversity on ecosystem stability across experimental grasslands.
Fig. 4: Direct and indirect effects of multiple facets of biodiversity on mean and variation in aboveground biomass production across experimental grasslands.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is a product of the sTability group funded by sDiv (www.idiv.de/stability), the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig (DFG FZT 118). The Jena Experiment is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation; FOR 1451) and the Swiss National Science Foundation. The Cedar Creek biodiversity experiments were supported by awards from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research (grant numbers DEB-9411972, DEB-0080382, DEB-0620652 and DEB-1234162), Biocomplexity Coupled Biogeochemical Cycles (DEB-0322057), Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (DEB-0716587, DEB-1242531) and Ecosystem Sciences (NSF DEB- 1120064) Programs, as well as the US Department of Energy Programs for Ecosystem Research (DE-FG02-96ER62291) and National Institute for Climatic Change Research (DE-FC02-06ER64158). The Texas MEND study was funded by US-NSF DEB-0639417 and USDA-NIFA-2014-67003-22067. The study has been supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (http://www.try-db.org). TRY is currently supported by DIVERSITAS/Future Earth and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. V.O. received financial support from the Russian Science Foundation (14-50-00029). The authors would also like to thank J. Lefcheck for his help in revising the structural equation models.

Authorship contributions

D.C., N.E. and F.I. conceived the project. D.C., P.M., N.E., W.D.P., Y.H., C.R., F.I., A.E., J.N.G., J.H., A.J., N.L., S.T.M., J.v.R., A.W. and M.D.S. further developed the project in a workshop. N.E., C.R., F.I., M.B., C.Be., G.B., N.B., C.By., B.E.L.C., J.A.C., J.H.C.C., J.M.C., E.D.L., A.H., A.J., J.Ka., J.Kr., V.L., V.M., V.O., H.W.P., P.B.R., J.v.R., B.S., N.A.S., D.T., A.W. and B.W. contributed experimental and functional trait data. D.C. compiled data. D.C. analysed data with significant input from P.M., N.E., W.D.P. and Y.H. D.C. and P.M. wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all co-authors contributed substantially to revisions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Dylan Craven, Nico Eisenhauer, Christiane Roscher, Jes Hines, Jens Kattge & Alexandra Weigelt

  2. Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Dylan Craven, Nico Eisenhauer, Jes Hines & Alexandra Weigelt

  3. Department of Community Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Halle (Saale), Germany

    Dylan Craven

  4. Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Dylan Craven

  5. Department of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    William D. Pearse

  6. Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Yann Hautier

  7. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, USA

    Forest Isbell & David Tilman

  8. Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Christiane Roscher

  9. Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Michael Bahn

  10. Department of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Carl Beierkuhnlein

  11. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Gerhard Bönisch & Jens Kattge

  12. Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Nina Buchmann

  13. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea

    Chaeho Byun

  14. Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Jane A. Catford

  15. Department of Theoretical and Applied Science, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy

    Bruno E. L. Cerabolini

  16. Systems Ecology, Department of Ecological Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    J. Hans C. Cornelissen

  17. Jonah Ventures, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Joseph M. Craine

  18. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Enrica De Luca

  19. Institute of Ecology, University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Anne Ebeling

  20. Department of Biosciences, College of Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    John N. Griffin

  21. Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Andy Hector

  22. Department of Disturbance Ecology, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Anke Jentsch

  23. Experimental Plant Ecology, Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, Greifswald University, Greifswald, Germany

    Jürgen Kreyling

  24. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Vojtech Lanta

  25. Department of Functional Ecology, Institute of Botany CAS, Třeboň, Czech Republic

    Vojtech Lanta

  26. Department of Biology, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Nathan Lemoine & Melinda D. Smith

  27. Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management, School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Sebastian T. Meyer

  28. Department of Biology, Ecology and Biodiversity, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Vanessa Minden

  29. Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Landscape Ecology Group, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Vanessa Minden

  30. Department of Geobotany, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

    Vladimir Onipchenko

  31. USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Grassland, Soil & Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX, USA

    H. Wayne Polley

  32. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  33. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter B. Reich

  34. Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Jasper van Ruijven

  35. Department of Biology, Algoma University, Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, Canada

    Brandon Schamp

  36. Environmental Biology Department, Institute of Environmental Sciences, CML, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Nadejda A. Soudzilovskaia

  37. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

    Brian Wilsey

  38. Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Frankfurt, Germany

    Peter Manning

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  1. Dylan Craven
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  2. Nico Eisenhauer
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Correspondence to Dylan Craven.

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Supplementary Figures 1–15, Supplementary Tables 1–4, Supplementary Appendix 1–2.

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Craven, D., Eisenhauer, N., Pearse, W.D. et al. Multiple facets of biodiversity drive the diversity–stability relationship. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1579–1587 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0647-7

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