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Soil depth alters the effect of species diversity on productivity in an experimental karst herbaceous community

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Abstract

Aims

The mechanism by which species diversity drives productivity in different ecosystems is controversial, possibly due to the confounding effects of key environmental variables. Karst ecosystems are fragile and are at great risk of species loss. In these ecosystems, soil depth is a key driver of community diversity and productivity. However, the influence of soil depth on the relationship between species diversity and productivity in karst ecosystems remains unclear.

Methods

We established artificial karst herbaceous communities with different soil depths and species richness levels and determined how two biodiversity effects—complementarity effect (effect of positive interactions among species) and selection effect (effect due to dominance of productive species)—contributed to productivity.

Results

Soil depth, species diversity, and different species combinations were significant predictors of productivity. Species diversity significantly positively affected productivity at all three soil depths, with the effect size of species diversity being the greatest in medium-depth soil. Net diversity effects were greater than 0 in all multi-species communities, indicating that complementarity and selection effects both positively influenced productivity. However, complementarity effect had a greater contribution to productivity than selection effect in all multi-species communities. Furthermore, the contribution of complementarity effect increased with increasing soil depth, while that of selection effect decreased.

Conclusions

Our result indicate that both soil depth and species diversity need be considered simultaneously in maintaining karst herbaceous community productivity. Moreover, complementarity effect is the major mechanism by which diversity increases community productivity, particularly in shallow soil. Thus, the more attention should be paid to promoting species diversity with the decreasing of soil depth for adequately preserve karst key functions such as herbaceous community productivity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0502304). We thank Yunrong Xiang, Wenchao Ma, and Miao Chen who helped with experimental soil collection, and Juan Zuo who helped guide data analysis.

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Author notes

  1. Yuan Liu, Xuli Ren and Qixiao Zhang are contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Eco-Environments in Three Gorges Reservoir Region(Ministry of Education), Chongqing Key Laboratory of Plant Ecology and Resources Research in Three Gorges Reservoir Region, School of Life Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Yuan Liu, Xuli Ren, Qixiao Zhang, Qiaoyu Li, Chunyan She, Haiyan Song, Jinchun Liu & Jianping Tao

  2. Chongqing Jinfo Mountain Karst Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Jianping Tao

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  1. Yuan Liu
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Liu, Y., Ren, X., Zhang, Q. et al. Soil depth alters the effect of species diversity on productivity in an experimental karst herbaceous community. Plant Soil 471, 61–71 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05095-5

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