Dickson, T.L. and K.L. Gross.
Presented at the All Scientist Meeting (2013-04-04 to 2013-04-05 )
Increased nitrogen deposition is one of the most important factors driving terrestrial plant extinctions (Sala et al. 2000). Although fertilization generally causes declines in plant species richness, these declines often do not occur immediately after fertilization begins (Huberty et al. 1998). In a successional fertilization study at the Kellogg Biological Station LTER, we found that fertilization did not significantly decrease species richness for 14 years (Fig. 1). We test the hypothesis that fertilization decreases species richness by eventually increasing the dominance / biomass of the tall highly clonal (runner) functional group, thereby leading to decreases in the biomass of all other functional groups.
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