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.

Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment

Nature volume 441, pages 629–632 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Human-driven ecosystem simplification has highlighted questions about how the number of species in an ecosystem influences its functioning. Although biodiversity is now known to affect ecosystem productivity1,2,3,4,5,6, its effects on stability are debated6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we present a long-term experimental field test of the diversity–stability hypothesis. During a decade of data collection in an experiment that directly controlled the number of perennial prairie species4, growing-season climate varied considerably, causing year-to-year variation in abundances of plant species and in ecosystem productivity. We found that greater numbers of plant species led to greater temporal stability of ecosystem annual aboveground plant production. In particular, the decadal temporal stability of the ecosystem, whether measured with intervals of two, five or ten years, was significantly greater at higher plant diversity and tended to increase as plots matured. Ecosystem stability was also positively dependent on root mass, which is a measure of perenniating biomass. Temporal stability of the ecosystem increased with diversity, despite a lower temporal stability of individual species, because of both portfolio (statistical averaging) and overyielding effects. However, we found no evidence of a covariance effect. Our results indicate that the reliable, efficient and sustainable supply of some foods (for example, livestock fodder), biofuels and ecosystem services can be enhanced by the use of biodiversity.

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

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

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

Figure 1: Dependence of temporal stability of each plot on experimentally imposed species-number treatment.
Figure 2: Dependence of ecosystem temporal stability from 1996 to 2005 on realized species number.
Figure 3: Effects of plant diversity on the relationship between mean biomass and its temporal standard deviation.

References

  1. Naeem, S., Håkenson, K., Lawton, J. H., Crawley, M. J. & Thompson, L. J. Biodiversity and plant productivity in a model assemblage of plant species. Oikos 76, 259–264 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Tilman, D., Wedin, D. & Knops, J. Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems. Nature 379, 718–720 (1996)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hector, A. et al. Plant diversity and productivity experiments in European grasslands. Science 286, 1123–1127 (1999)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Tilman, D. et al. Diversity and productivity in a long-term grassland experiment. Science 294, 843–845 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hector, A., Bazeley-White, E., Loreau, M., Otway, S. & Schmid, B. Overyielding in grassland communities: Testing the sampling effect hypothesis with replicated biodiversity experiments. Ecol. Lett. 5, 502–511 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hooper, D. U. et al. Effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge. Ecol. Monogr. 75, 3–35 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Elton, C. S. The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants (Methuen, London, 1958)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. May, R. M. Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1973)

    Google Scholar 

  9. McNaughton, S. J. Stability and diversity of ecological communities. Nature 274, 251–253 (1978)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Tilman, D. & Downing, J. A. Biodiversity and stability in grasslands. Nature 367, 363–365 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Tilman, D. Biodiversity: Population versus ecosystem stability. Ecology 77, 350–363 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Huston, M. A. Hidden treatments in ecological experiments: Re-evaluating the ecosystem function of biodiversity. Oecologia 110, 449–460 (1997)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Pfisterer, A. B. & Schmid, B. Diversity-dependent production can decrease the stability of ecosystem functioning. Nature 416, 84–86 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. McNaughton, S. J. in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function (eds Schulze, E.-D. & Mooney, H. A.) 361–383 (Springer, Berlin, 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Frank, D. A. & McNaughton, S. J. Stability increases with diversity in plant communities: Empirical evidence from the 1988 Yellowstone drought. Oikos 62, 360–362 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. McGrady-Steed, J., Harris, P. M. & Morin, P. J. Biodiversity regulates ecosystem predictability. Nature 390, 162–165 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Naeem, S. & Li, S. Biodiversity enhances ecosystem reliability. Nature 390, 507–509 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Petchey, O. L., McPhearson, P. T., Casey, T. M. & Morin, P. J. Environmental warming alters food-web structure and ecosystem function. Nature 402, 69–72 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Lehman, C. L. & Tilman, D. Biodiversity, stability, and productivity in competitive communities. Am. Nat. 156, 534–552 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Naeem, S. Biodiversity equals instability? Nature 416, 23–24 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Pimm, S. L. The complexity and stability of ecosystems. Nature 307, 321–326 (1984)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  22. Tilman, D. The ecological consequences of changes in biodiversity: A search for general principles. Ecology 80, 1455–1474 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Tilman, D. & El Haddi, A. Drought and biodiversity in grasslands. Oecologia 89, 257–264 (1992)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Fargione, J. E. & Tilman, D. Diversity decreases invasion via both sampling and complementarity effects. Ecol. Lett. 8, 604–611 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Pfisterer, A. B., Joshi, J., Schmid, B. & Fischer, M. Rapid decay of diversity–productivity relationships after invasion of experimental plant communities. Basic Appl. Ecol. 5, 5–14 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Doak, D. F. et al. The statistical inevitability of stability–diversity relationships in community ecology. Am. Nat. 151, 264–276 (1998)

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Tilman, D., Lehman, C. L. & Bristow, C. E. Diversity–stability relationships: Statistical inevitability or ecological consequence? Am. Nat. 151, 277–282 (1998)

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Daily, G. C. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems (Island Press, Washington DC, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Kremen, C. Managing ecosystem services: What do we need to know about their ecology? Ecol. Lett. 8, 468–479 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank J. Fargione for insightful comments, and T. Mielke, N. Larson, S. Bauer and our summer interns for assistance. The National Science Foundation, the Bush Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation provided financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, Minnesota, 55108, St Paul, USA

    David Tilman

  2. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, 1530 North Cleveland Avenue, Minnesota, 55108, St Paul, USA

    Peter B. Reich

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, 348 Manter Hall, Nebraska, 68588-0118, Lincoln, USA

    Johannes M. H. Knops

Authors
  1. David Tilman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter B. Reich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Johannes M. H. Knops
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Tilman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tilman, D., Reich, P. & Knops, J. Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment. Nature 441, 629–632 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04742

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04742

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

Advanced 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