Rapid evolution allows plant communities to regain stability after simulated species loss

Abstract Experiments simulating species loss from grassland ecosystems have shown that losing biodiversity decreases the ability of ecosystems to buffer disturbances. However, plant or plant-soil evolutionary processes may allow ecosystems to regain stability and resilience over time. We explored such effects in a long-term grassland biodiversity experiment. Low diversity communities of plants with a history of co-occurrence (selected communities) were temporally more stable than the same communities of plants with no such history (naive communities). Furthermore, selected communities showed greater recovery following a major flood, resulting in more stable post-flood productivity. These results were consistent across soil treatments simulating the presence or absence of co-selected microbial communities. We suggest that plant evolution in a community context can increase ecosystem temporal stability and resistance to disturbances. Evolution can thus in part compensate for extreme species loss as can high plant diversity in part compensate for the missing opportunity of evolutionary adjustments.