Realistic species loss has little effect on local resource depletion and competitive pressure in a temperate wet meadow

Biodiversity loss has been repeatedly demonstrated to decrease community resistance to colonisation, increasing their sensitivity to invasive species. Based on these results, Elton’s hypothesis proposed that biodiversity loss reduces the competitive ability of plant communities by emptying ecological niches and, thus, increasing the availability of unused resources. Yet, direct evidence for the effect of diversity loss on resource use and the consequences for the community competitive ability remains scarce, especially under natural conditions. We created a species richness gradient (1 to 27 species on average) simulating a realistic species loss through the long-term (6 years) removal of rare and subordinate species in a species-rich oligotrophic wet meadow. To assess the effects of species richness on the competitive ability of communities, we transplanted phytometers of two species (the grass Holcus lanatus and the forb Plantago lanceolata) into plots varying in species richness and ..., Design of long-term removal experiment The study was conducted in an oligotrophic wet meadow in South Bohemia region, 10 km southeast of České Budějovice, Czech Republic (48.953 N, 14.593 E, 510 m a.s.l.). The mean annual temperature of this locality is 9°C with the mean annual precipitation 725 mm (data averaged across years 1990 – 2021 available from: https://www.meteoblue.com, accessed November 20, 2024). It is a very species rich meadow with over 30 species per 1 m2 dominated by Molinia caerulea, Danthonia decumbens and Betonica officinalis (alliance Molinion caeruleae). This meadow is nutrient-poor with intermittently wet soils, partially drying out especially during the summer period. This meadow is traditionally extensively managed by mowing once a year at the peak of the vegetation season. We used a long-term diversity removal experiment established in 2016 in the study site which simulates a realistic species loss scenario. In addition to control plots corresponding to the inta..., # Data from: Realistic species loss has little effect on local resource depletion and competitive pressure in a temperate wet meadow Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.0zpc867cd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0zpc867cd) ## Description of the data and file structure ### Files and variables #### File: Phytometers_data_spring.csv **Description:** Dataset with phytometer traits and estimates of resource depletion in spring period ##### Variables * Sp: Species * Plot: Experimental plot * Block: Number of experimental block * Targeted_species_richness: Targeted species richness [number of species] * Light_interception: Light interception [unitless] * SoilN: Soil nitrogen content  [% in matter] * SoilP: Soil phosphorus content [mg/kg soil in matter] * Temperature: Ground-level temperature [°C] * Water_content: Water content [unitless] * RGR: Relative growth rate of phytometers in diversity plots [day^-1^] * RGR_gap: Relative growth rate of phytometers in gaps [day^-1^] * RGR_resp: Response of ..., ,