Abstract
Plant biodiversity–productivity relationships become stronger over time in grasslands, forests, and agroecosystems. Plant shoot and root litter is important in mediating these positive relationships, yet the functional role of plant litter remains overlooked in long-term experiments. We propose that plant litter strengthens biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships over time in four ways by providing decomposing detritus that releases nitrogen (N) over time for uptake by existing and succeeding plants, enhancing overall soil fertility, changing soil community composition, and reducing the impact of residue-borne pathogens and pests. We bring new insights into how diversity–productivity relationships may change over time and suggest that the diversification of crop residue retention through increased residue diversity from plant mixtures will improve the sustainability of food production systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 473-484 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Trends in Ecology and Evolution |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2023 |
Funding
We thank S.Y. Wu for her help with the figures. The study was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China ( 32130067 , 31971450 , and 31500348 ) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China ( 2022YFD1500702 and 2022YFC3501503 ). R.M.C. thanks the USA National Science Foundation EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement OIA-1757351 for support.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| OIA-1757351 | |
| National Natural Science Foundation of China | 32130067, 31971450, 31500348 |
| 2022YFD1500702, 2022YFC3501503 |
Keywords
- biodiversity–ecosystem functioning
- litter mixture
- nitrogen transfer
- plant litter
- residue-borne pathogens
- soil organic carbon
- Ecosystem
- Soil
- Plants
- Biodiversity
- Nitrogen
