TY - JOUR
T1 - Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems
AU - Tilman, David
AU - Wedin, David
AU - Knops, Johannes
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2005 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1996/2/22
Y1 - 1996/2/22
N2 - The functioning and sustainability of ecosystems may depend on their biological diversity. Elton's hypothesis that more diverse ecosystems are more stable has received much attention, but Darwin's proposal that more diverse plant communities are more productive, and the related conjectures that they have lower nutrient losses and more sustainable soils, are less well studied. Here we use a well-replicated field experiment, in which species diversity was directly controlled, to show that ecosystem productivity in 147 grassland plots increased significantly with plant biodiversity. Moreover, the main limiting nutrient, soil mineral nitrogen, was utilized more completely when there was a greater diversity of species, leading to lower leaching loss of nitrogen from these ecosystems. Similarly, in nearby native grassland, plant productivity and soil nitrogen utilization increased with increasing plant species richness. This supports the diversity-productivity and diversity-sustainability hypotheses. Our results demonstrate that the loss of species threatens ecosystem functioning and sustainability.
AB - The functioning and sustainability of ecosystems may depend on their biological diversity. Elton's hypothesis that more diverse ecosystems are more stable has received much attention, but Darwin's proposal that more diverse plant communities are more productive, and the related conjectures that they have lower nutrient losses and more sustainable soils, are less well studied. Here we use a well-replicated field experiment, in which species diversity was directly controlled, to show that ecosystem productivity in 147 grassland plots increased significantly with plant biodiversity. Moreover, the main limiting nutrient, soil mineral nitrogen, was utilized more completely when there was a greater diversity of species, leading to lower leaching loss of nitrogen from these ecosystems. Similarly, in nearby native grassland, plant productivity and soil nitrogen utilization increased with increasing plant species richness. This supports the diversity-productivity and diversity-sustainability hypotheses. Our results demonstrate that the loss of species threatens ecosystem functioning and sustainability.
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U2 - 10.1038/379718a0
DO - 10.1038/379718a0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0029667536
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 379
SP - 718
EP - 720
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 6567
ER -