Data from: Drought-exposure history increases complementarity between plant species in response to a subsequent drought

Growing threats from extreme climatic events and biodiversity loss have raised concerns about their interactive consequences for ecosystem functioning. Evidence suggests biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning during such climatic events. However, whether exposure to extreme climatic events will strengthen the biodiversity-dependent buffering effects for future generations remains elusive. We assess such transgenerational effects by exposing experimental grassland communities to eight recurrent summer droughts vs. ambient conditions in the field. Seed offspring of 12 species are subsequently grown individually, in monocultures, or in 2-species mixtures; and subjected to a subsequent drought event in the glasshouse. Comparing productivity between mixtures and monocultures, drought-selected plants show greater between-species complementarity than ambient-selected plants when recovering from the subsequent drought, causing stronger biodiversity effects on productivity and better recovery of drought-selected mixtures after the drought. These findings suggest exposure to recurrent climatic events can improve ecosystem responses to future events through transgenerational reinforcement of species complementarity.

极端气候事件频发和生物多样性丧失的日益严重威胁，引发了对其对生态系统功能交互作用的后果的担忧。研究证据表明，生物多样性能够在此类气候事件期间缓冲生态系统功能。然而，极端气候事件对后代生物多样性依赖的缓冲效应是否得以加强，这一问题仍颇具挑战性。本研究通过将实验草地群落暴露于八次反复发生的夏季干旱与自然环境条件进行对比，评估了此类跨代效应。随后，12种物种的种子后代被单独种植、形成单一种植或两种物种的混合种植，并在温室中遭受后续的干旱事件。对比混合种植与单一种植的生产力，干旱选择植物在恢复后续干旱时展现出的种间互补性优于自然环境选择植物，导致对生产力的生物多样性效应更加显著，且干旱选择混合种植在干旱后的恢复情况更佳。这些发现表明，暴露于反复发生的气候事件可以通过跨代强化种间互补性来提升生态系统对未来事件的响应能力。