1. Ecology

Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity

  1. Peter Dietrich  Is a corresponding author
  2. Jens Schumacher
  3. Nico Eisenhauer
  4. Christiane Roscher
  1. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany
  2. Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
  3. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig,, Germany
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74054
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  1. Peter Dietrich
  2. Jens Schumacher
  3. Nico Eisenhauer
  4. Christiane Roscher
(2022)
Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity
eLife 11:e74054.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74054
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Abstract

Global change has dramatic impacts on grassland diversity. However, little is known about how fast species can adapt to diversity loss and how this affects their responses to global change. Here, we performed a common garden experiment testing whether plant responses to global change are influenced by their selection history and the conditioning history of soil at different plant diversity levels. Using seeds of four grass species and soil samples from a 14-year old biodiversity experiment, we grew the offspring of the plants either in their own soil or in soil of a different community, and exposed them either to drought, increased nitrogen input, or a combination of both. Under nitrogen addition, offspring of plants selected at high diversity produced more biomass than those selected at low diversity, while drought neutralized differences in biomass production. Moreover, under the influence of global change drivers, soil history, and to a lesser extent plant history, had species-specific effects on trait expression. Our results show that plant diversity modulates plant-soil interactions and growth strategies of plants, which in turn affects plant eco-evolutionary pathways. How this change affects species' response to global change and whether this can cause a feedback loop should be investigated in more detail in future studies.

Data availability

The data reported in this paper have been deposited in Dryad, whichcan be publicly accessed at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.gmsbcc2p7

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Peter Dietrich

    Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
    For correspondence
    peter.dietrich@idiv.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7742-6064

  2. Jens Schumacher

    Institute of Mathematics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Nico Eisenhauer

    Experimental Interaction Ecology, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig,, Leipzig, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0371-6720

  4. Christiane Roscher

    Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR 1451; FOR 5000; FZT 118)

  • Nico Eisenhauer
  • Christiane Roscher

Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Ph.D. scholarship)

  • Peter Dietrich

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. David A. Donoso, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador

Version history

  1. Received: September 20, 2021
  2. Preprint posted: October 8, 2021 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: March 29, 2022
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: March 30, 2022 (version 1)
  5. Accepted Manuscript updated: March 31, 2022 (version 2)
  6. Version of Record published: May 16, 2022 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2022, Dietrich et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Peter Dietrich
  2. Jens Schumacher
  3. Nico Eisenhauer
  4. Christiane Roscher
(2022)
Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity
eLife 11:e74054.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74054

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