First meeting: 25.-29.11.2013

PI & iDiv member:
Helmut Hillebrand

Working group postdoc:
Aleksandra Lewandowska

Project summary:
Research on biodiversity effects on ecosystem function needs generalization across ecosystem guided by general ecological frameworks. Ecological stoichiometry (ES) has been very successful in explaining resource uptake by autotrophs and transfer to other trophic levels based on the relative availability of different elements. However, ES has rarely been addressed in a biodiversity framework, despite the evidence that resource ratios affect coexistence and that biodiversity affects resource use efficiency. Here, we argue that analysing biodiversity as a consequence of resource supply ratios and biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning as a consequence of multi-element resource use efficiency. Therefore, we aim to combine data analysis and modeling approaches to understand the stoichiometric constraints of BEF relationships. To the latter, we invited modelers with different expertise in biodiversity and stoichiometry theory. To the former, we combine researchers with access to large scale data bases on biodiversity experiments with expertise in meta-analysis and ecological stoichiometry. We aim for a cross-system analysis of data and models to achieve a general understanding how resource use traits are stoichiometrically linked and how this transfers into different primary and secondary production in ecosystems.

Participants:
Bernd Blasius (Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg), Ulrich Brose (University of Göttingen), Jane Cowles (University of Minnesota), Dylan Craven (iDiv), Tanguy Daufresne (INRA), Steven Declerck (Royal Academy of Science, The Netherlands), Nico Eisenhauer (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Nathaly Guerrero Ramirez (Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena), W. Stanley Harpole (Iowa State University), Helmut Hillebrand (Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg), Christopher Klausmeier (Michigan State University), Aleksandra Lewandowska (iDiv), Elena Litchman (Michigan State University), David Ott (University of Göttingen), Eric Seabloom (University of Minnesota), Jonathan Shurin (University of California San Diego), Maren Striebel (Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg), Jotaro Urabe (Tohoku University), Dedmer van de Waal (Royal Academy of Science, The Netherlands), Ellen van Donk (Royal Academy of Science, The Netherlands), Harry Olde Venterink (Free University Brussels), Colleen Webb (iDiv)

Meeting report