Seed limitation interacts with biotic and abiotic factors to constrain novel species’ impact on community biomass and richness

Seed limitation can narrow down the number of coexisting plant species, limit plant community productivity, and can also constrain community responses to changing environmental and biotic conditions. In a 10-year full-factorial experiment of seed addition, fertilisation, warming, and herbivore exclusion, we tested how seed addition alters community richness and biomass, and how its effects depend on seed origin and biotic and abiotic context. We found that seed addition increased species richness in all treatments, and increased plant community biomass depending on nutrient addition and warming. Novel species, originally absent from the communities, increased biomass the most, especially in fertilised plots and in the absence of herbivores, while adding seeds of local species did not affect biomass. Our results show that seed limitation constrains both community richness and biomass, and highlight the importance of considering trophic interactions and soil nutrients when assessing novel..., , , Datasets used in \"Seed limitation interacts with biotic and abiotic factors to constrain novel species impact on community biomass and richness\" from Nomie Pichon, Elina Kaarlejrvi and Anu Eskelinen, 2023, Ecology Letters.
Biomass, richness and trait values measured in 2019 on a seed addition experiment started in 2009, in Kilpisjrvi, Finnish Lapland.
The experiment manipulates factorially seed addition from local and novel species, warming, NPK fertilisation, and mammal herbivore exclosure (levels are always untreated/treated).
The experiment consists in 56 plots. Plots are cut in two subplots, one subplot is unseeded, the other subplot is seeded, summing up to 112 subplots.

See methods for more info on the design. If you have further questions: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

The models used in the analyses are found in \"Seed_limitation_code.R\"
We included here three different datasets:

1. **Seed_limitation_dataset_all.txt**
This dataset contains species...,