Litter and fertilizer effects on final seedling biomass as obtained in a common garden experiment for 75 grassland species used in the seed addition plots of the REX experiment

Agricultural grasslands play an important role in conserving the biodiversity of the European cultural landscape. Both, litter cover and soil nutrient availability are well-known factors that change with grassland management, but it is not well-studied how the germination and seedling growth of multiple grassland species are influenced by their single or combined effects.<br>We studied the effects of fertilization (100 kg N per year and ha) and litter cover (250 gdw per m2) on seedling growth as final biomass which compares the biomass per species after the same time. For this, we examined 75 temperate grassland species (16 grass species, 51 forb species, 8 legume species) which were sown as single species in a full factorial microcosm experiment. The microcosm experiment was part of the project Seed Div within the framework of the DFG-funded joint project Biodiversity Exploratories (https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de).

农业草原在保护欧洲文化景观的生物多样性方面具有重要作用。枯落物覆盖与土壤养分有效性是随草原管理方式发生改变的两个公认因子，但目前针对二者单独及联合作用对多种草原植物物种萌发与幼苗生长的影响，尚未开展充分研究。
本研究以各物种在相同培养周期后的生物量作为幼苗生长的最终评价指标，探究施肥（每年每公顷施氮100 kg）与枯落物覆盖（每平方米250 gdw）对幼苗生长的影响。为此，我们选取了75种温带草原植物（含16种禾草、51种杂类草（forb）、8种豆科植物），以单物种播种方式开展全因子微宇宙（microcosm）实验。
本次微宇宙实验隶属于"Seed Div"项目，该项目是德国研究基金会（DFG）资助的联合项目"生物多样性探索计划（Biodiversity Exploratories）"的组成部分，相关网址为https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de。