Species richness: a pivotal factor mediating the effects of land use intensification and climate on grassland multifunctionality

Temperate semi-natural grasslands harbour unique biodiversity, support livestock farming through forage production, and deliver many essential ecosystem services (ESs) to human society; they are highly multifunctional. However, temperate grassland ecosystems are also among the most threatened ecosystems on earth due to land use and climate change. Understanding how biodiversity, climate, and land use intensification impact grassland multifunctionality through complex direct and indirect pathways is critical to better anticipate the future of these fragile ecosystems. 
Here, we evaluate how local plant species richness (SR) modulates the effect of land use intensification and climate on grassland multifunctionality (using six key ESs: biomass productivity and stability, forage quality, carbon storage, pollination, and local plant rarity) in the French Massif Central, the largest grassland in Western-Europe. We sampled 100 grassland fields with contrasted fertilisation rates, and SR over ..., This dataset of 100 grasslands in Massif Central displays different characteristics of these ecosystems regarding topo-edaphic context, climate, species richness, and management practices. A variable named \"multifunctionality\" was also calculated, as the average of centered and scaled values of six ecosystem services: biomass productivity, fodder quality, carbon stock in the soil, stability, and local rarity.
This survey across Massif Central took place during three sampling campaigns: 2008 & 2009 for the Prairies AOP project, 2014 & 2015 for the ATOUS project, and 2016-2017 for the AEOLE project. A total number of 143 grasslands were sampled and led to the \"Typologie des prairies du Massif Central\" or \"Typology of the grasslands of Massif Central\".
The present dataset shows a subsample of the original database that was completed by climatic data from the SAFRAN database, as well as topographic data from the Copernicus dataset. It was used to study the complex relationships betw..., , # Species richness: a pivotal factor mediating the effects of land use intensification and climate on grassland multifunctionality

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzdg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzdg)

This dataset was built to explain the multifunctionality of grassland ecosystems (calculation explained below the table) by the predictors described in the table.

The .csv file that contains the data is not comma-delimited, but semicolon-delimited.

## Description of the data and file structure

| Variable name | Definition |
| :--------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...