Variability in community productivity: mediating effects of vegetation attributes

1. Plant productivity varies though time in response to environmental fluctuations. Reducing variability in productivity requires an improved understanding of how plant community attributes interact with environmental fluctuations to influence plant growth dynamics. We evaluated links between two community attributes, species diversity and abundance-weighted values of specific leaf area (SLA), and temporal variability in grassland productivity at patch (local) and aggregate (multi-patch) spatial scales. 2. Aggregate communities were created by combining patches of spatially-distinct communities of perennial plant species from grassland biodiversity experiments in Texas, USA. Inter-annual variability in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) of aggregate communities was analyzed as a function of two multiplicative components, mean temporal variability in the ANPP of patches and temporal synchrony in ANPP dynamics among patches. We used regression analyses to determine whether tem...