Chen, Qingqing and Blowes, Shane A. and Harpole, W. Stanley and Ladouceur, Emma and Borer, Elizabeth T. and MacDougall, Andrew and Martina, Jason P. and Bakker, Jonathan D. and Tognetti, Pedro M. and Seabloom, Eric W. and Daleo, Pedro and Power, Sally and Roscher, Christiane and Adler, Peter B. and Donohue, Ian and Wheeler, George and Stevens, Carly and Veen, G. F. Ciska and Risch, Anita C. and Wardle, Glenda M. and Hautier, Yann and Estrada, Catalina and Hersch-Green, Erika and Niu, Yujie and Peri, Pablo L. and Eskelinen, Anu and Gruner, Daniel S. and Olde Venterink, Harry and D’Antonio, Carla and Cadotte, Marc W. and Haider, Sylvia and Eisenhauer, Nico and Catford, Jane and Virtanen, Risto and Morgan, John W. and Tedder, Michelle and Bagchi, Sumanta and Caldeira, Maria C. and Bugalho, Miguel N. and Knops, Johannes M. H. and Dickman, Chris R. and Hagenah, Nicole and Jentsch, Anke and Macek, Petr and Osborne, Brooke B. and Laanisto, Lauri and Chase, Jonathan M. (2025) Local nutrient addition drives plant diversity losses but not biotic homogenization in global grasslands. Nature Communications, 16 (1): 4903. ISSN 2041-1723
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Nutrient enrichment typically causes local plant diversity declines. A common but untested expectation is that nutrient enrichment also reduces variation in nutrient conditions among localities and selects for a smaller pool of species, causing greater diversity declines at larger than local scales and thus biotic homogenization. Here we apply a framework that links changes in species richness across scales to changes in the numbers of spatially restricted and widespread species for a standardized nutrient addition experiment across 72 grasslands on six continents. Overall, we find proportionally similar species loss at local and larger scales, suggesting similar declines of spatially restricted and widespread species, and no biotic homogenization after 4 years and up to 14 years of treatment. These patterns of diversity changes are generally consistent across species groups. Thus, nutrient enrichment poses threats to plant diversity, including for widespread species that are often critical for ecosystem functions.