Abstract
Humans are changing Earth's systems on an unprecendented scale. These changes reduce both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Yet, biodiversity is one of our strongest fail-safes in a changing world because it stabilizes ecosystems in stressful climatic conditions. Maintaining and restoring diverse ecosystems is therefore crucial to limiting the impact of global change on ecosystem functioning. In Western Europe, grasslands are among the most threatened but biodiversity-dense ecosystems. The aim of this project is to increase the resilience of restored grasslands to increased drought and flooding due to climate change by explicitly including positive interactions between plant species in restoration strategies. My work shows that positive interactions between plants (facilitation) are key to increasing ecosystem functioning and stability. Some plant species and communities make the microclimate less stressful for the species that arrive afterwards. This facilitation increases diversity and colonization rates while simultaneously increasing and stabilizing ecosystem functioning both above- and belowground. We may be able to leverage this effect to improve restoration outcomes. With this project, I will identify the characteristics of facilitative species or communities in the context of (1) increasing plant diversity, (2) species arrival order, and (3) changing climatic conditions due to global change. I will use these insights to develop a theoretical model applying facilitation to ecological restoration and test this model in a restoration experiment in collaboration with restoration practitioners. This unique combination of approaches allows me to test the hypothesis that seeding restoration sites with facilitative species/plant communities first increases the resilience of restored grasslands to increased drought and flooding for the first time. Further, this unique combination provides a simple and generalizable nature-based climate solution in grasslands which represent over 20% of global carbon but are one of the most threatened ecosystems in Europe.
Netherlands