Exploring plant community assembly for its potential for grassland restoration: the role of traits and functional diversity

Exploring plant community assembly for its potential for grassland restoration: the role of traits and functional diversity in assembling grasslandsEmanuela Weidlich 1, Timo Conradi 2, Johannes Kollmann 2, Vicky M. Temperton 11 Plant Sciences, Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-2), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany2 Restoration Chair, TU München, GermanyCommunity assembly has received much attention in ecology and is a cornerstone of ecological restoration. It is often studied within restoration contexts but assembly processes as such have rarely been directly implemented to aid restoration. In this poster we present a range of different grassland experiments that address ecological assembly within a restoration context. Our collaborative research (between the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the TU München) aims to improve grassland biodiversity and productivity (for potential bioenergy use) by using priority effects during assembly in mesic grasslands as well as better understand how initial assembly interacts with different abiotic conditions during restoration to affect outcomes. • In a field experiment, called the Priority Effect Experiment in Jülich (2012 –today) we are testing the long term influence of priority effects on community development, where we sowed high and low diversity mixtures and altered the sequence in which plant functional types arrived in the system. Here we are focussing on functional traits and how they affect any priority effects of who arrives first. Initial results show a strong priority effect of sowing legumes before other forbs and grasses on aboveground and belowground productvity. • Near München, the field experiment called the N and Water Assembly Experiment is testing the relative role of niche-based and neutral factors during the initial assembly of restored calcareous grasslands along environmental gradients. In August 2014 we plan to also test the role of nurse plant facilitation during the assembly of this grassland across the water and N gradients. • Germination and seedling traits of all species in both field experiments have been screened to use as a guide for further controlled experiments and to compare to trait values in species growing in both field experiments. • Planned controlled experiments testing how interactions between different species change depending on which species with which traits arrive earlier are also highlighted.This overall approach will help us to understand the mechanisms of priority effects in grassland communities in order to be able to use this knowledge in improving grassland restoration as well as providing sufficient biomass for land managers