Drought effects on root and shoot traits and their decomposability

1. Drought can induce phenotypic plasticity in a range of plant root and shoot traits. These traits have been shown to explain differences in root and shoot litter decomposability between species. However, it is unknown how drought-induced plasticity of root and shoot traits alters their decomposability.
2. To investigate this issue across a range of species, we grew a grass (Lolium perenne), a forb (Plantago lanceolata) and a legume (Trifolium repens) common to European temperate grasslands and subjected them to a 5-week moderate drought treatment. We compared morphological and chemical root and shoot traits of the droughted plants to well-watered controls. We then conducted a decomposition assay of the senesced root and shoot material over 16 weeks, with mass loss measurements at five timepoints.
3. Drought had significant and sometimes strong effects on morphological and chemical root and shoot traits of all three species, sometimes similar to differences between species and generall..., This data set contains trait measurement data from three grassland plant species (Plantago lanceolata, Lolium perenne and Trifolium repens).
They were grown in the greenhouse for 12 weeks including a 5-week drought (40% water holding capacity) and a control (60% water holding capacity) treatment.
This data set also contains mass loss data from a subsequent litter decomposability experiment using litter from the same plants.
n/a indicates missing data due to lost samples.,