Plant diversity loss has limited effects on belowground biomass and traits but alters community short-term root production in a species-rich grassland

Many biodiversity - ecosystem functioning (BEF) experiments have shown enhanced productivity with biodiversity, often explained by niche differentiation and complementarity effects. Yet, most of these results are based on artificial plant assemblages, with a major focus on aboveground productivity. Consequently, our comprehension of the BEF relationship in natural ecosystem and for belowground functions remains largely unknown.
In this study, we simulated a long-term non-random species loss in a naturally diverse temperate meadow. We created a richness gradient spanning from 1 to more than 20 species per plot, removing the rare and sub-ordinate species from the vegetation.  After 3 and 6 years of experimental manipulation, soil cores were collected to investigate the effects of species removal on belowground biomass, vertical distribution of roots, and root traits. We also used ingrowth cores to quantify the short-term root production of plant communities. We investigated the consistenc..., Study site
The study was conducted in a wet oligotrophic meadow located near České Budějovice, Czech Republic (48°57’10.8” N 14°35’34.8” E, 510 m a. s. l.). The site has a mean annual temperature of 8.3°C and a mean annual precipitation around 700 mm (Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, 1992-2022). It is a particularly species-rich meadow with an average species richness of c. 29 species per 0.25 m2 (Lisner et al., 2023). The most dominant species is Molinia caerulea followed by Danthonia decumbens, and Betonica officinalis. A complete list of species can be found in the data repository attached to Lisner et al. (2024). Traditionally, the meadow has been extensively managed with a single annual mowing, at the peak of the vegetation season, in mid-June. No special permits were required to conduct the experiment or collect the data.
Experimental design
The manipulative experiment was established in 2016 and is described in detail in Lisner et al. (2023). A gradient of diversity loss was ..., , # Data from: Plant diversity loss has limited effects on belowground biomass and traits but alters community short-term root production in a species-rich grassland

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p8cz8wb1j](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p8cz8wb1j)

## Experiment description

This dataset stems from a long-term manipulative experiment conducted in a species-rich, wet oligotrophic meadow near České Budějovice, Czech Republic (48°57’10.8” N, 14°35’34.8” E; 510 m a.s.l.). Established in 2016, the experiment aimed to investigate the effects of realistic biodiversity loss on ecosystem stability. A gradient of diversity loss was created in 30 1 × 1 m plots by systematically removing plant species based on their relative abundance, resulting in four levels of reduced diversity (1, 3, 6, and 12 species remaining), alongside two control treatments: intact vegetation and a disturbance control.

Data include measurements of aboveground biomass, collected during peak vegetation seasons in 2019 and 2...