Land use-intensity is known to be one of the key factors causing biodiversity loss and affecting species composition. The project has the major goal to characterize seed and early life-history traits of multiple species occurring in the grasslands of the Biodiversity Exploratories and to relate these traits to landuse effects on grassland diversity and processes of community assembly. I will, therefore, conduct common garden experiments to characterize germination and seedling traits under different environmental conditions related to grassland management (i.e. litter presence and fertilization). Further, I will analyze morphological and chemical seed traits, and I will study the viable seed bank in the top soil of grasslands included in a land-use experiment in the Biodiversity Exploratories.

Schleuss, P.; Widdig, M.; Heintz-Buschart, A.; Guhr, A.; Martin, S.; Kirkman, K.; Spohn, M. (2019) Stoichiometric controls of soil carbon and nitrogen cycling after long-term nitrogen and phosphorus addition in a mesic grassland in South Africa. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 135 (294 – 303). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.05.018