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Herbivores and nutrients control grassland plant diversity via light limitation

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/1544bq878

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Abstract
  • Human alterations to nutrient cycles[superscript 1,2] and herbivore communities³⁻⁷ are affecting global biodiversity dramatically². Ecological theory predicts these changes should be strongly counteractive: nutrient addition drives plant species loss through intensified competition for light, whereas herbivores prevent competitive exclusion by increasing ground-level light, particularly in productive systems[superscript 8,9]. Here we use experimental data spanning a globally relevant range of conditions to test the hypothesis that herbaceous plant species losses caused by eutrophication may be offset by increased light availability due to herbivory. This experiment, replicated in 40 grasslands on 6 continents, demonstrates that nutrients and herbivores can serve as counteracting forces to control local plant diversity through light limitation, independent of site productivity, soil nitrogen, herbivore type and climate. Nutrient addition consistently reduced local diversity through light limitation, and herbivory rescued diversity at sites where it alleviated light limitation. Thus, species loss from anthropogenic eutrophication can be ameliorated in grasslands where herbivory increases ground-level light.
  • This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Nature Publishing Group and can be found at: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
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  • Borer, E. T., Seabloom, E. W., Gruner, D. S., Harpole, W. S., Hillebrand, H., Lind, E. M., ... & Yang, L. H. (2014). Herbivores and nutrients control grassland plant diversity via light limitation. Nature, 508(7497). doi:10.1038/nature13144
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  • 508
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  • 7497
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  • This work uses data from the Nutrient Network (http://nutnet.org) experiment, funded at the site scale by individual researchers. Coordination and data management are supported by funding to E. Borer and E. Seabloom from the NSF Research Coordination Network (NSF-DEB-1042132) and Long Term Ecological Research (NSF-DEB-1234162 to Cedar Creek LTER) programs and the UMN Institute on the Environment (DG-0001-13).
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