Authors: Zhongling Yang Jasper van Ruijven Guozhen Du
Publish Date: 2011/04/15
Volume: 345, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 315-324
Abstract
Recent theoretical and experimental work suggests that species diversity enhances the temporal stability of communities However empirical support largely comes from experimental communities The relationship between diversity and stability in natural communities and the ones facing environmental changes in particular has received less attention We created a gradient of fertility in a natural alpine meadow community to test the effects of diversity and fertilization on the temporal variability of community cover and cover of component species and to determine the importance of asynchrony portfolio effects cover and dominance for diversitystability relationships Although fertilization strongly reduced species richness the temporal stability in community cover increased with fertilization Most species showed a decline of temporal stability in mean population cover with fertilization but two grass species which dominated fertilized communities after 10 years showed an increase of stability Detailed analysis revealed that the increased dominance of these two highly stable grass species was associated with increased community stability at high levels of fertilization In contrast we found little support for other mechanisms that have been proposed to contribute to community stability such as changes in asynchrony and portfolio effects We conclude that the presence of highly productive species that have stabilizing properties dominate fertilized assemblages and enhance ecosystem stabilityWe thank Dr Hui Guo Shujun Wen Xin Chen Peng Jia Wei Li Xiaoiming Shi and Chunhui Zhang for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript Yuanzhen Zhu Liujie Wang Xiao Yang Wenxiang Hu Junyong Li and many others of the Maqu Rangeland Workgroup for assistance in both the field and lab This project was supported by Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaGrant No40930533
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