Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity

  1. Peter Dietrich  Is a corresponding author
  2. Jens Schumacher
  3. Nico Eisenhauer
  4. Christiane Roscher
  1. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany
  2. Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
  3. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig,, Germany

Abstract

Global change has dramatic impacts on grassland diversity. However, little is known about how fast species can adapt to diversity loss and how this affects their responses to global change. Here, we performed a common garden experiment testing whether plant responses to global change are influenced by their selection history and the conditioning history of soil at different plant diversity levels. Using seeds of four grass species and soil samples from a 14-year old biodiversity experiment, we grew the offspring of the plants either in their own soil or in soil of a different community, and exposed them either to drought, increased nitrogen input, or a combination of both. Under nitrogen addition, offspring of plants selected at high diversity produced more biomass than those selected at low diversity, while drought neutralized differences in biomass production. Moreover, under the influence of global change drivers, soil history, and to a lesser extent plant history, had species-specific effects on trait expression. Our results show that plant diversity modulates plant-soil interactions and growth strategies of plants, which in turn affects plant eco-evolutionary pathways. How this change affects species' response to global change and whether this can cause a feedback loop should be investigated in more detail in future studies.

Data availability

The data reported in this paper have been deposited in Dryad, whichcan be publicly accessed at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.gmsbcc2p7

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Peter Dietrich

    Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
    For correspondence
    peter.dietrich@idiv.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7742-6064
  2. Jens Schumacher

    Institute of Mathematics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Nico Eisenhauer

    Experimental Interaction Ecology, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig,, Leipzig, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0371-6720
  4. Christiane Roscher

    Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR 1451; FOR 5000; FZT 118)

  • Nico Eisenhauer
  • Christiane Roscher

Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Ph.D. scholarship)

  • Peter Dietrich

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2022, Dietrich et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 1,080
    views
  • 202
    downloads
  • 4
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Peter Dietrich
  2. Jens Schumacher
  3. Nico Eisenhauer
  4. Christiane Roscher
(2022)
Eco-evolutionary dynamics modulate plant responses to global change depending on plant diversity and species identity
eLife 11:e74054.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74054

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74054

Further reading

    1. Ecology
    Laura Fargeot, Camille Poesy ... Blanchet Simon
    Research Article

    Understanding the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning stands as a cornerstone in ecological research. Extensive evidence now underscores the profound impact of species loss on the stability and dynamics of ecosystem functions. However, it remains unclear whether the loss of genetic diversity within key species yields similar consequences. Here, we delve into the intricate relationship between species diversity, genetic diversity, and ecosystem functions across three trophic levels – primary producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers – in natural aquatic ecosystems. Our investigation involves estimating species diversity and genome-wide diversity – gauged within three pivotal species – within each trophic level, evaluating seven key ecosystem functions, and analyzing the magnitude of the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEFs). We found that, overall, the absolute effect size of genetic diversity on ecosystem functions mirrors that of species diversity in natural ecosystems. We nonetheless unveil a striking dichotomy: while genetic diversity was positively correlated with various ecosystem functions, species diversity displays a negative correlation with these functions. These intriguing antagonist effects of species and genetic diversity persist across the three trophic levels (underscoring its systemic nature), but were apparent only when BEFs were assessed within trophic levels rather than across them. This study reveals the complexity of predicting the consequences of genetic and species diversity loss under natural conditions, and emphasizes the need for further mechanistic models integrating these two facets of biodiversity.

    1. Ecology
    2. Evolutionary Biology
    Justine Boutry, Océane Rieu ... Fréderic Thomas
    Research Article

    While host phenotypic manipulation by parasites is a widespread phenomenon, whether tumors, which can be likened to parasite entities, can also manipulate their hosts is not known. Theory predicts that this should nevertheless be the case, especially when tumors (neoplasms) are transmissible. We explored this hypothesis in a cnidarian Hydra model system, in which spontaneous tumors can occur in the lab, and lineages in which such neoplastic cells are vertically transmitted (through host budding) have been maintained for over 15 years. Remarkably, the hydras with long-term transmissible tumors show an unexpected increase in the number of their tentacles, allowing for the possibility that these neoplastic cells can manipulate the host. By experimentally transplanting healthy as well as neoplastic tissues derived from both recent and long-term transmissible tumors, we found that only the long-term transmissible tumors were able to trigger the growth of additional tentacles. Also, supernumerary tentacles, by permitting higher foraging efficiency for the host, were associated with an increased budding rate, thereby favoring the vertical transmission of tumors. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that, like true parasites, transmissible tumors can evolve strategies to manipulate the phenotype of their host.