Spare a thought for the roots

Nutrient addition increases aboveground plant growth more than it increases belowground plant growth, suggesting that the two are not linked. 

Diverse soil improves plant diversity after all!

It stands to reason that variable environmental conditions would support greater plant diversity, but few experiments have offered concrete support for the “environmental heterogeneity hypothesis.” In re-establishing tallgrass prairie, the correlation took over 15 years to emerge.

Integrating plant community and ecosystem responses to chronic global change drivers: Toward an explanation of patterns and improved global predictions

JRN LTER researchers prepare a precipitation addition/reduction experiment.

Background and plans Many global change drivers (GCDs) lead to chronic alterations in resource availability. As communities change through time in response to these GCDs, the magnitude and direction of ecosystem responses are also predicted to change in a non-linear fashion. We proposed to examine whether plant community dynamics are predictive of shifts in ecosystem… Read more »