People

Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Project P.I.
Wolfgang W. Weisser, Project P.I.
Sven Pompe, Scientist
Alexandra Weigelt, PostDoc
Steffen Eismann, Technican
Silke Hengelhaupt, Technician
Sylvia Junghans, Technician
Ute Köber, Technician
Gerlinde Kratzsch, Technician
Katja Kunze, Technician
Heike Scheffler, Technician
Jürgen Bergner, FÖJ

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Rationale

The coordination subproject maintains the research facility infrastructure and experimental plots as basis for the work of all other subprojects. It coordinates the activities of the subprojects on the field site, monitors and archives the continuously measured data obtained by a central CAN-Bus system and builds up a central database comprising all data collected on the field site.

The team of the coordination subproject since 2005

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Field work to maintain the facility

(1) Weeding

(2) Mowing

(3) Biomass harvest

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Community structure and plant competition in the dominance experiment (Weigelt)

In the dominance experiment, nine presumably dominant species had been planted in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 species mixtures in 2002. Here community as well as species specific effects of biodiversity can be observed. Among the questions we currently try to answer with this experimental design are the following:

• Does horizontal community structure depend on species richness?
• Do spatial associations of species pairs exist?
• Are always the same species dominant/ inferior?
• Do species rankings change with changing biodiversity?
• Are there differences depending on the functional groups?
• Does the competitive effect on the growth of plant individuals change with increasing biodiversity?
• Are there differences between two-species and multi-species mixtures?

First results of species cover in the 9 species mixtures in 2002 and 2005 (data from Roscher and Weigelt).

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Spatial heterogeneity and biodiversity (Schumacher, Weigelt)

The question of temporal stability and invasibility depending on species richness has received much attention recently, while spatial stability was never really considered. However, it might be an important mechanism for crop stability in managed systems and could provide additional insight in the complex biodiversity-ecosystem functioning debate.

In 2005 an additional harvest of biomass sub-samples per plot was performed to see whether there is a relationship between biodiversity and spatial heterogeneity and whether specific functional traits are responsible for differences in heterogeneity.

The setup of additional biomass samples to study spatial heterogeneity in 2005.

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Direct plant uptake of amino acids (Weigelt, Sauheitl)

This project aims to study the direct uptake of amino acids by plants in grassland systems of increasing biodiversity focussing on the following questions:

• Is there a relationship between biodiversity and the use of different nitrogen pools (ammonium, nitrate, amino acids)?
• Do single target species directly use amino acids as N source in an ecologically relevant amount?
• Does direct uptake of amino acids influence the competitive interactions between target species?

First results from labelling experiment with potted Festuca pratense plants in field soil.

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