Does plant diversity influence phosphorus cycling in experimental grasslands?

Plant diversity was shown to influence the N cycle, but plant diversity effects on other nutrients remain unclear. We tested whether plant species richness or the presence/absence of particular functional plant groups influences P partitioning among differently extractable pools in soil, P concentrations in soil solution, and exploitation of P resources (i.e. the proportion of total bioavailable P in plants and soil that was stored in aboveground biomass) by the plant community in a 5-year biodiversity experiment in grassland.The experimental grassland site established in 2002 had 82 plots with different combinations of numbers of species (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 60) and functional groups (grasses,…