Interactive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass, abiotic factors, and plant diversity in global grasslands

dc.contributor.authorSpohn, Marie
dc.contributor.authorBagchi, Sumanta
dc.contributor.authorBakker, Jonathan D.
dc.contributor.authorBorer, Elizabeth T.
dc.contributor.authorCarbutt, Clinton
dc.contributor.authorCatford, Jane A.
dc.contributor.authorDickman, Christopher R.
dc.contributor.authorEisenhauer, Nico
dc.contributor.authorEskelinen, Anu
dc.contributor.authorHagenah, Nicole
dc.contributor.authorHautier, Yann
dc.contributor.authorKoerner, Sally E.
dc.contributor.authorKomatsu, Kimberly J.
dc.contributor.authorLaanisto, Lauri
dc.contributor.authorLekberg, Ylva
dc.contributor.authorMartina, Jason P.
dc.contributor.authorMartinson, Holly
dc.contributor.authorPartel, Meelis
dc.contributor.authorPeri, Pablo L.
dc.contributor.authorRisch, Anita C.
dc.contributor.authorSmith, Nicholas G.
dc.contributor.authorStevens, Carly
dc.contributor.authorVeen, G.F. Ciska
dc.contributor.authorVirtanen, Risto
dc.contributor.authorYahdjian, Laura
dc.contributor.authorYoung, Alyssa L.
dc.contributor.authorYoung, Hillary S.
dc.contributor.authorSeabloom, Eric W.
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-21T07:02:21Z
dc.date.available2025-05-21T07:02:21Z
dc.date.issued2025-01
dc.descriptionDATA AVAILABILITY : All data are available at this repository. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509903.
dc.descriptionCODE AVAILABILITY : All R code for reproducing the results is available at this repository. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509903.
dc.description.abstractGrasslands cover approximately a third of the Earth’s land surface and account for about a third of terrestrial carbon storage. Yet, we lack strong predictive models of grassland plant biomass, the primary source of carbon in grasslands. This lack of predictive ability may arise from the assumption of linear relationships between plant biomass and the environment and an underestimation of interactions of environmental variables. Using data from 116 grasslands on six continents, we show unimodal relationships between plant biomass and ecosystem characteristics, such as mean annual precipitation and soil nitrogen. Further, we found that soil nitrogen and plant diversity interacted in their relationships with plant biomass, such that plant diversity and biomass were positively related at low levels of nitrogen and negatively at elevated levels of nitrogen. Our results show that it is critical to account for the interactive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass and several environmental variables to accurately include plant biomass in global vegetation and carbon models.
dc.description.departmentMammal Research Institute
dc.description.departmentZoology and Entomology
dc.description.librarianhj2025
dc.description.sdgSDG-15: Life on land
dc.description.sponsorshipOpen access funding provided by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
dc.description.urihttps://www.nature.com/commsbio
dc.identifier.citationSpohn, M., Bagchi, S., Bakker, J.D. et al. Interactive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass, abiotic factors, and plant diversity in global grasslands. Communications Biology 8, 97 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07518-w.
dc.identifier.issn2399-3642 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1038/s42003-025-07518-w
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/102454
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherNature Research
dc.rights© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
dc.subjectBiogeochemistry
dc.subjectEcosystem ecology
dc.subjectGrassland ecology
dc.titleInteractive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass, abiotic factors, and plant diversity in global grasslands
dc.typeArticle

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