Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Addition of multiple limiting resources reduces grassland diversity

Subjects

Abstract

Niche dimensionality provides a general theoretical explanation for biodiversity—more niches, defined by more limiting factors, allow for more ways that species can coexist1. Because plant species compete for the same set of limiting resources, theory predicts that addition of a limiting resource eliminates potential trade-offs, reducing the number of species that can coexist2. Multiple nutrient limitation of plant production is common and therefore fertilization may reduce diversity by reducing the number or dimensionality of belowground limiting factors. At the same time, nutrient addition, by increasing biomass, should ultimately shift competition from belowground nutrients towards a one-dimensional competitive trade-off for light3. Here we show that plant species diversity decreased when a greater number of limiting nutrients were added across 45 grassland sites from a multi-continent experimental network4. The number of added nutrients predicted diversity loss, even after controlling for effects of plant biomass, and even where biomass production was not nutrient-limited. We found that elevated resource supply reduced niche dimensionality and diversity and increased both productivity5 and compositional turnover. Our results point to the importance of understanding dimensionality in ecological systems that are undergoing diversity loss in response to multiple global change factors.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Biodiversity and number of resources.
Figure 2: Biomass and light.
Figure 3: Multiple resource limitation.
Figure 4: Community composition.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Hutchinson, G. E. Concluding remarks. Quant. Biol. 22, 415–427 (1957)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Tilman, D. Resource Competition and Community Structure (Princeton Univ. Press, 1982)

  3. Hautier, Y., Niklaus, P. A. & Hector, A. Competition for light causes plant biodiversity loss after eutrophication. Science 324, 636–638 (2009)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Borer, E. T. et al. Finding generality in ecology: a model for globally distributed experiments. Methods Ecol. Evol. 5, 65–73 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Harpole, W. S. & Tilman, D. Grassland species loss resulting from reduced niche dimension. Nature 446, 791–793 (2007)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Darwin, C. R. On the Origin of Species (John Murray, 1859)

  7. Interlandi, S. J. & Kilham, S. S. Limiting resources and the regulation of diversity in phytoplankton communities. Ecology 82, 1270–1282 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Hutchinson, G. E. The paradox of the plankton. Am. Nat. 95, 137–147 (1961)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Silvertown, J., Biss, P. M. & Freeland, J. Community genetics: resource addition has opposing effects on genetic and species diversity in a 150-year experiment. Ecol. Lett. 12, 165–170 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Ren, Z. et al. Effects of resource additions on species richness and ANPP in an alpine meadow community. J. Plant Ecol. 3, 25–31 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Harpole, W. S. et al. Nutrient co-limitation of primary producer communities. Ecol. Lett. 14, 852–862 (2011)

  12. Elser, J. J. et al. Global analysis of nitrogen and phosphorus limitation of primary producers in freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Ecol. Lett. 10, 1135–1142 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Fay, P. A. et al. Grassland productivity limited by multiple nutrients. Nature Plants 1, 15080 (2015)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Foster, B. L. & Gross, K. L. Species richness in a successional grassland: effects of nitrogen enrichment and plant litter. Ecology 79, 2593–2602 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Chapin, F. S. III The mineral nutrition of wild plants. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 11, 233–260 (1980)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Cardinale, B. J., Hillebrand, H., Harpole, W. S., Gross, K. & Ptacnik, R. Separating the influence of resource ‘availability’ from resource ‘imbalance’ on productivity-diversity relationships. Ecol. Lett. 12, 475–487 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Tilman, D., Isbell, F. & Cowles, J. M. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 45, 471–493 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Seabloom, E. W. et al. Plant species’ origin predicts dominance and response to nutrient enrichment and herbivores in global grasslands. Nature Commun. 6, 7710 (2015)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Isbell, F. et al. Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 11911–11916 (2013)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. von Felten, S. et al. Belowground nitrogen partitioning in experimental grassland plant communities of varying species richness. Ecology 90, 1389–1399 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Litchman, E. & Klausmeier, C. A. Trait-based community ecology of phytoplankton. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 39, 615–639 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Chase, J. M. & Knight, T. M. Scale-dependent effect sizes of ecological drivers on biodiversity: why standardised sampling is not enough.Ecol. Lett. 16 (Suppl 1), 17–26 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Flores-Moreno, H. et al. Climate modifies response of non-native and native species richness to nutrient enrichment. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150273 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Borer, E. T. et al. Herbivores and nutrients control grassland plant diversity via light limitation. Nature 508, 517–520 (2014)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Steffen, W. et al. Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347, 1259855 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Tilman, D. & Lehman, C. Human-caused environmental change: impacts on plant diversity and evolution. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 5433–5440 (2001)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Crawley, M. J. & Harral, J. E. Scale dependence in plant biodiversity. Science 291, 864–868 (2001)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. Oksanen, J. Is the humped relationship between species richness and biomass an artefact due to plot size? J. Ecol. 84, 293–295 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Pinheiro, J. & Bates, D. Mixed-effects models in S and S-PLUS (Springer, 2006)

  30. Hedges, L. V., Gurevitch, J. & Curtis, P. S. The meta-analysis of response ratios in experimental ecology. Ecology 80, 1150–1156 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute for hosting project data, the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment for hosting Nutrient Network meetings, and each site investigator for funding their site-level operations. Network coordination and data management were supported by funds from the National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network (NSF-DEB-1042132) to E.T.B. and E.W.S. from the Long Term Ecological Research program (NSF-DEB-1234162) to the Cedar Creek LTER, and from the Institute on the Environment (DG-0001-13). Konza NutNet site was funded by the Konza Prairie LTER; the Saline Experimental Range NutNet site was funded by a Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Pilot Grant. Nitrogen fertilizer was donated to the Nutrient Network by Crop Production Services, Loveland, Colorado. We thank N. Gotelli for discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

W.S.H. analysed the data and wrote the paper with contributions and input from all authors. L.L.S., E.M.L. and J.F. contributed to data analysis. W.S.H., E.W.S. and E.T.B. developed and framed the research questions. W.S.H., E.W.S., E.T.B. and E.M.L. are Nutrient Network coordinators. All authors collected data used in this analysis. Author contribution matrix provided as Supplementary Table 2.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to W. Stanley Harpole.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

Reviewer Information Nature thanks J. Levine, B. Schmid and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Table 1 The effects of nutrient addition on diversity loss and richness loss increase with time
Extended Data Table 2 The number of added resources predicts diversity loss after controlling for other variables
Extended Data Table 3 The number of added resources is an important predictor even after controlling for other variables, for sites that had light and litter data
Extended Data Table 4 Diversity loss due to addition of nutrients associated with soil properities

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-2. (PDF 305 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Harpole, W., Sullivan, L., Lind, E. et al. Addition of multiple limiting resources reduces grassland diversity. Nature 537, 93–96 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19324

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19324

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing