Plant mixture effects on fine-root biomass and its functional traits

Abstract

Fine roots play a critical role in the uptake of soil water and nutrients and make a crucial contribution to the carbon pool through their fast turnover rate and subsequent decay. Plant traitbased approach enables us to understand the plant growth strategy via the ratio of benefit to cost of carbon investment, especially under global change. Increasing biodiversity loss threatens the ecosystem productivity, which could further influence the fine-root functions. However, previous studies have reported inconsistent responses of fine-root biomass and root functional traits to the effects of plant species richness and functional trait dissimilarity (such as contrasting shade and drought tolerance). The purpose of this dissertation is to reveal the possible mechanisms of different responses of fine-root biomass (FRB) and root functional traits to plant species richness and functional trait dissimilarity, and further to test whether these mixture effects would change with water availability. [...]