Data from: Species richness effects on grassland recovery from drought depend on community productivity in a multisite experiment

Biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning against extreme climatic
events, but few experiments have explicitly tested this. Here, we present
the first multisite biodiversity × drought manipulation experiment to
examine drought resistance and recovery at five temperate and
Mediterranean grassland sites. Aboveground biomass production declined by
30% due to experimental drought (standardised local extremity by rainfall
exclusion for 72–98 consecutive days). Species richness did not affect
resistance but promoted recovery. Recovery was only positively affected by
species richness in low-productive communities, with most diverse
communities even showing overcompensation. This positive diversity effect
could be linked to asynchrony of species responses. Our results suggest
that a more context-dependent view considering the nature of the climatic
disturbance as well as the productivity of the studied system will help
identify under which circumstances biodiversity promotes drought
resistance or recovery. Stability of biomass production can generally be
expected to decrease with biodiversity loss and climate change.