ETH Zürich, Agricultural Economics and Policy Group, Zurich, Switzerland.
ETH Zürich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Zurich, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2020 Feb 7;11(1):768. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14541-4.
In agricultural settings, plant diversity is often associated with low biomass yield and forage quality, while biodiversity experiments typically find the opposite. We address this controversy by assessing, over 1 year, plant diversity effects on biomass yield, forage quality (i.e. nutritive values), quality-adjusted yield (biomass yield × forage quality), and revenues across different management intensities (extensive to intensive) on subplots of a large-scale grassland biodiversity experiment. Plant diversity substantially increased quality-adjusted yield and revenues. These findings hold for a wide range of management intensities, i.e., fertilization levels and cutting frequencies, in semi-natural grasslands. Plant diversity was an important production factor independent of management intensity, as it enhanced quality-adjusted yield and revenues similarly to increasing fertilization and cutting frequency. Consequently, maintaining and reestablishing plant diversity could be a way to sustainably manage temperate grasslands.
在农业环境中，植物多样性通常与生物量产量和饲料质量低有关，而生物多样性实验通常得出相反的结果。我们通过评估大规模草地生物多样性实验的子区域在不同管理强度（从粗放管理到集约管理）下，植物多样性对生物量产量、饲料质量（即营养价值）、质量调整后的产量（生物量产量×饲料质量）和收入的影响，来解决这一争议。在一年的时间里，植物多样性显著提高了质量调整后的产量和收入。这些发现适用于半自然草地的各种管理强度，即施肥水平和刈割频率。植物多样性是一个独立于管理强度的重要生产因素，因为它同样可以提高质量调整后的产量和收入，就像增加施肥和刈割频率一样。因此，维持和重新建立植物多样性可能是可持续管理温带草地的一种方法。
