Dominant species drive biomass and diversity responses to nutrient inputs

Global change is enriching terrestrial ecosystems with multiple nutrients and amplifying interannual variation in precipitation. Grassland productivity may be co-limited by combinations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). How these nutrients may interact with each other or with varying precipitation to influence the contributions of dominant species and functional groups to aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and species diversity is rarely considered. We fertilized a mesic grassland for five years with all combinations of N, P, and K + micronutrients in the first year (Kµ) to test which nutrients 1) limited ANPP and functional group biomass, 2) reordered dominant species and impacted plant species diversity, and 3) interacted with annual precipitation to influence these responses. Adding N and P together disproportionately increased ANPP, but adding both N and P or N and Kµ disproportionately increased forb biomass to account for nearly all (90%) of ANPP. Grass ..., , # Dominant species drive biomass and diversity responses to nutrient inputs

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22t0](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22t0)

## Description of the data and file structure

Manuscript Title: Limiting and non-limiting nutrients impact species richness and dominant species abundance in a nitrogen-phosphorus co-limited grassland.

PI: Philip Fay, USDA-ARS Grassland, Soil, and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX 76502 USA.

Data collected: Data are from a grassland site near Temple, Texas which conducted a multiple nutrient fertilization experiment for a minimum from 2008 to 2016. The experiment followed the Nutrient Network standardized experimental protocol. 5 m x 5 m experimental plots were fertilized with nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium in factorial combinations with three replicates per nutrient combination. Current year live aboveground biomass was sampled by harvesting, and plant community composition was measured by visual estimates of the percen...,