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ABSTRACT Biodiversity promotes ecosystem productivity and stability, positive impacts that often strengthen over time. But ongoing global changes such as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition may modulate the impact of biodiversity on ecosystem productivity and stability over time. Using a quarter‐century grassland biodiversity‐global change experiment we show that diversity increasingly enhanced productivity over time irrespective of global change treatments. In contrast, the positive influence of diversity on ecosystem stability strengthened over time under ambient conditions but weakened to varying degrees under global change treatments, largely driven by a greater reduction in species asynchrony under global changes. Thus, over 25 years, CO2and N enrichment gradually eroded some of the positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem stability. As elevated CO2, N eutrophication, and biodiversity loss increasingly co‐occur in grasslands globally, our results raise concerns about their potential joint detrimental effects on long‐term grassland stability.
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Nitrogen and CO2 enrichment interact to decrease biodiversity impact on complementarity and selection effects
Abstract Global environmental change is causing a decline in biodiversity with profound implications for ecosystem functioning and stability. It remains unclear how global change factors interact to influence the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and stability. Here, using data from a 24-year experiment, we investigate the impacts of nitrogen (N) addition, enriched CO2(eCO2), and their interactions on the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship (complementarity effects and selection effects), the biodiversity-ecosystem stability relationship (species asynchrony and species stability), and their connections. We show that biodiversity remains positively related to both ecosystem productivity (functioning) and its stability under N addition and eCO2. However, the combination of N addition and eCO2diminishes the effects of biodiversity on complementarity and selection effects. In contrast, N addition and eCO2do not alter the relationship between biodiversity and either species asynchrony or species stability. Under ambient conditions, both complementarity and selection effects are negatively related to species asynchrony, but neither are related to species stability; these links persist under N addition and eCO2. Our study offers insights into the underlying processes that sustain functioning and stability of biodiverse ecosystems in the face of global change.
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- PAR ID:
- 10632448
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62691-0
