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Microplastic and drought influence the positive effect of plant diversity on plant biomass production
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Researchers conducted a glasshouse experiment assembling grassland plant communities across diversity gradients and exposing them to microplastic and drought treatments, finding that drought significantly weakened the positive diversity-biomass relationship through negative complementarity effects, while microplastics tended to reduce this relationship by suppressing grass and legume shoot biomass, though microplastics partially alleviated drought-induced biomass losses in legumes.
Global change and the loss of plant diversity threaten terrestrial ecosystem functionality. Microplastic pollution is considered a novel environmental stressor potentially affecting plant biomass production. However, it is poorly understood whether and how microplastic interacts with other global change factors, such as drought, to affect plant communities and the relationships between plant diversity and biomass production. To unravel the above question and any underlying mechanisms, we conducted a glasshouse experiment. We assembled plant communities along a gradient of plant diversity and then subjected them to four microplastic and drought scenarios in grassland microcosms. Our results showed that the positive effect of plant diversity on biomass production strongly depended on drought, whereas no significant interaction with microplastic was detected. Nevertheless, microplastic tended to decrease this positive relationship by reducing positive selection effect through suppressed shoot biomass of grasses and legumes. By contrast, drought significantly weakened this positive relationship by inducing a negative complementarity effect that led to a negative net diversity effect through strongly reduced shoot biomass of legumes. Both microplastic and drought decreased community biomass across all plant diversity levels, but microplastic could alleviate the negative effect of drought on community biomass by enhancing the shoot biomass of legumes. Synthesis. Our findings reveal that microplastic and drought influence the positive effects of plant diversity on plant biomass production. Moreover, our study suggests that the mechanisms by which plant diversity affects productivity are differently sensitive to microplastic and drought. We highlight the importance of legumes in protecting and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functions in the face of microplastic pollution and drought risks.
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Microplastic and drought influence the positive effect of plant diversity on plant biomass production
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers conducted a glasshouse experiment assembling grassland plant communities across diversity gradients and exposing them to microplastic and drought treatments, finding that drought significantly weakened the positive diversity-biomass relationship through negative complementarity effects, while microplastics tended to reduce this relationship by suppressing grass and legume shoot biomass, though microplastics partially alleviated drought-induced biomass losses in legumes.
Microplastic and drought influence the positive effect of plant diversity on plant biomass production
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers conducted a glasshouse experiment assembling grassland plant communities across diversity gradients and exposing them to microplastic and drought treatments, finding that drought significantly weakened the positive diversity-biomass relationship through negative complementarity effects, while microplastics tended to reduce this relationship by suppressing grass and legume shoot biomass, though microplastics partially alleviated drought-induced biomass losses in legumes.
Microplastic and drought influence the positive effect of plant diversity on plant biomass production
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers found that microplastic pollution and drought stress each reduced the positive effect of plant diversity on biomass production, with their combined presence further weakening this relationship in a glasshouse experiment across plant communities of varying diversity.
Microplastic and drought influence the positive effect of plant diversity on plant biomass production
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers conducted a glasshouse experiment examining how microplastic pollution interacts with drought to affect plant biomass production across a gradient of plant diversity, finding that microplastics influenced the positive biodiversity-productivity relationship. The study reveals that microplastic pollution is a novel stressor that interacts with drought to affect terrestrial ecosystem functionality in ways not predictable from single-factor experiments.
Effects of Microplastic Fibers and Drought on Plant Communities
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Researchers added microplastic fibers to plant communities and applied drought stress, finding that microfibers reduced total community productivity and shifted species composition, with combined microplastic-drought stress causing greater harm than either factor alone.
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