Species-specific root-shoot ratios in a diverse grassland community

Existing studies of root/shoot ratios (R/S) in the field show large differences among environments, from high values in unproductive environments to low values in productive environments. However, virtually all such studies are community-wide, i.e. compare biomasses of roots and shoots summed over all coexisting species. Therefore we do not know to what extent this is due to innate interspecific differences in the R/S ratios or to plastic response to nutrient limitations. This is due to methodological difficulties in assigning roots into species, which preclude the contribution of species-specific differences to the community-wide R/S ratio.
These limitations can be overcome by DNA analyses. We used qPCR to determine species-specific R/S ratios in a montane grassland and compared these values to R/S ratios from a two-season long single-species pot experiment. To translate the qPCR data to root biomass units, we extracted DNA from the experimental plants to perform calibration for each s..., Quantitative real-time PCR with species-specific primers was used to quantify the root biomass of 11 plant species in temperate mountain grasslands under field conditions. Aboveground plant biomass was estimated by weight. A pot experiment was set up to allow the conversion of target gene copy numbers into plant biomass units in the focal species and to facilitate the determination of the root-shoot ratio of individual species under field conditions., , # Species-specific root-shoot ratios in a diverse grassland community

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p5hqbzkzh](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p5hqbzkzh)

## Description of the data and file structure

Root biomass estimates for 11 grassland species using qPCR in field and pot experiments.

### Files and variables

#### File: field\_Achillea\_root\_biomass\_2018.txt

**Description:** root biomass of *Achillea millefolium *estimated by qPCR in at field site in 2018. Missing data are indicated by NA.

##### Variables

* Samples: refers to the soil cube used for DNA extraction
* Meann Cp: qPCR raw data indicating in which PCR cycle the fluorescence crossed the threshold level
* Target gene mean conc. pg: estimate of target gene copy number (pg)
* OLD_Target species root biomass (mg): target gene copy number re-calculated to root biomass unit using the calibration coefficient from Herben et al (2018) (mg)
* NEWMEAN_Target species root biomass (mg): target gene copy number re-calculated to r...