Contrasting responses of different functional groups stabilise community responses to a dominant shrub under global change

1. Changes in precipitation regimes and nitrogen deposition levels due to global change are altering terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Most attempts at understanding how biotic interactions affect plant species and community responses to global change have focused on biotic interactions measured at the community-level. However, these approaches ignore that communities include functionally dissimilar species that might respond differently to changes in the effects of dominant neighbours along environmental gradients. We test the hypothesis that plant species with differences in functional traits may exhibit contrasting interactions with a dominant shrub species within a single community, thereby stabilizing community-level responses to the effects of global change.

2. We manipulated water and nitrogen applications in a semi-arid dune community in northern China, quantified the biomass of herbaceous species occurring below the dominant shrub, Artemisia ordosica, and in adjacent open pa...