Nitrogen and CO2 enrichment interact to decrease biodiversity impact on complementarity and selection effects

Abstract

Abstract Global environmental change is causing a decline in biodiversity with profound implications for ecosystem functioning and stability. It remains unclear how global change factors interact to influence the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning and stability. Here, using data from a 24-year experiment, we investigate the impacts of nitrogen (N) addition, enriched CO2 (eCO2), and their interactions on the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship (complementarity effects and selection effects), the biodiversity-ecosystem stability relationship (species asynchrony and species stability), and their connections. We show that biodiversity remains positively related to both ecosystem productivity (functioning) and its stability under N addition and eCO2. However, the combination of N addition and eCO2 diminishes the effects of biodiversity on complementarity and selection effects. In contrast, N addition and eCO2 do not alter the relationship between biodiversity and either species asynchrony or species stability. Under ambient conditions, both complementarity and selection effects are negatively related to species asynchrony, but neither are related to species stability; these links persist under N addition and eCO2. Our study offers insights into the underlying processes that sustain functioning and stability of biodiverse ecosystems in the face of global change.