Michael Scherer-Lorenzen

TL;DR: Niche complementarity and positive species interactions appear to play a role in generating diversity-productivity relationships within sites in addition to sampling from the species pool.

TL;DR: It is shown that 84% of the 147 grassland plant species studied in 17 biodiversity experiments promoted ecosystem functioning at least once, and many species are needed to maintain multiple functions at multiple times and places in a changing world.

TL;DR: A consistent positive concave-down effect of biodiversity on forest productivity across the world is revealed, showing that a continued biodiversity loss would result in an accelerating decline in forest productivity worldwide.

TL;DR: The extent of the trait data compiled in TRY is evaluated and emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness are analyzed to conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a multisite analysis of the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning within the European BIODEPTH network of plant-diversity manipulation experiments, showing that communities with a higher diversity of species and functional groups were more productive and utilized resources more completely by intercepting more light, taking up more nitrogen, and occupying more of the available space.