Higher effect of plant species diversity on productivity in natural than artificial ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Current and expected changes in biodiversity have motivated major experiments, which reported a positive relationship between plant species diversity and primary production. As a first step in addressing this relationship, these manipulative experiments controlled as many potential confounding covariables as possible and assembled artificial ecosystems for the purpose of the experiments. As a new step in this endeavor, we asked how plant species richness relates to productivity in a natural ecosystem. Here, we report on an experiment conducted in a natural ecosystem in the Patagonian steppe, in which we assessed the biodiversity effect on primary production. Using a plant species diversity gradient generated by removing species while maintaining constant biomass, we found that aboveground

SUBMITTER: Flombaum P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2329694 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature