Biodiversity and stability in grasslands

A long-term study of grasslands has revealed that primary production in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to and recovers more fully from drought. According to the diversity-stability hypothesis, species differ in their traits, and more diverse ecosystems are more likely to contain sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1994-01, Vol.367 (6461), p.363-365
Main Authors: Tilman, David, Downing, John A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Biodiversity
Biological and medical sciences
Drought
Drought resistance
Ecological function
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Grasslands
Plant communities
Primary production
Species diversity
Species richness
Synecology
Terrestrial ecosystems
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Summary:A long-term study of grasslands has revealed that primary production in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to and recovers more fully from drought. According to the diversity-stability hypothesis, species differ in their traits, and more diverse ecosystems are more likely to contain species that can withstand environmental perturbations. Alternatively, the species-redundancy hypothesis suggests that many species are so similar that ecosystem functioning is independent of diversity once the major functional groups are present. During the 11-year study of successional and native grasslands in Minnesota, the most severe drought of the past 50 years occurred (1987-1988). A curvilinear relationship was observed between drought resistance and plant-species richness before the drought. These results, therefore, support the diversity-stability hypothesis and lend further urgency to calls for the conservation of biodiversity.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/367363a0