The ExpeER call for Transnational Access (TA) proposals provides a unique opportunity for research teams and individuals to access some of Europe's major research infrastructures focused on ecosystem research. Each month, we will focus on one or two of these sites.

Focus on the Jena experimental site (Germany)

INSTITUTE: Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
MAIN PURPOSE: Biodiversity, ecosystem functions, element cycling, ecology, multitrophic interactions.
ECOSYSTEM TYPE:Grassland with different levels of plant diversity.
EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS:Plant species richness and functional groups, drought.
MORE INFORMATION: Map - About access, available facilities, supports offered and possible accommodation.
CONTACT: Anne Ebeling - (+49 3641 949 437)

Jena facilities

The Jena Experiment is one of the largest terrestrial biodiversity experiments worldwide and investigates the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem processes. Plant communities where plant species richness ranges from 1-60 species are established from a species pool of 60 species from Central European Arrhenatherum grasslands, divided into four functional groups. In total, research can be carried more than 600 plots. The experimental communities serve as basis to study ecosystem fluxes of carbon and nutrients. There are continuous measurements of meteorological variables on all large plots as well as monitoring of important components of the C, N and P-cycle.

New developments since the beginning of ExpeER

In addition to the long-term experiments, we established a set of new experimental plots (138 plots) in late 2010/ 2011, the so called Trait-Based Biodiversity Experiment (TBE). The aim of the TBE is to establish communities with different plant diversity and representing different levels of functional complementarity. In contrast to previous biodiversity experiments, the TBE combines a non-random species loss scenario with an almost orthogonal manipulation of complementarity. The design aims to advance functional diversity research by directly manipulating functional diversity, thereby considering and separating different types of functional traits (spatial resource acquisition traits and temporal resource acquisition traits). This enables us to test whether consequences of species loss for a certain function or ecosystem multifunctionality can be predicted from the distribution of species’ traits in the community.

ExpeER TNA accepted projects

Two projects have been accepted so far:
- Nematodes the molecular way (NEMACULE) - more
- Impact of summer drought and plant diversity on free-living soil nematodes (NEMADRYS) - more

Recent publications

Abbas M., Ebeling A., Oelmann Y., Ptacnik R., Roscher C., Weigelt, A., Weisser W.W., Wilcke, W., Hillebrand, H. 2013 Biodiversity Effects on Plant Stoichiometry. PLoS ONE 8(3), e58179. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058179.

Allan E., Jenkins T., Fergus A.J.F., Roscher C., Fischer M., Petermann J.S., Weisser W.W., Schmid B. 2013 Experimental plant communities develop phylogenetically overdispersed abundance distributions during assembly. Ecology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/11-2279.1

Guenay,Y., Ebeling A., Steinauer K., Weisser W.W., Eisenhauer N. 2013 Transgressive overyielding of soil microbial biomass in a grassland plant diversity gradient. Soil Biology & Biochemistry, 60: 122-124.

Milcu A., Allan E., Roscher C., Jenkins T., Meyer S.T., Flynn D.F.B., Bessler H., Buscot F.O., Engels C., Gubsch M.N., König S., Lipowsky A., Loranger J., Renker C., Scherber C., Schmid B., Thébault E., Wubet T., Weisser W.W., Scheu S., Eisenhauer N. (2013) Functionally and phylogenetically diverse plant communities key to soil biota. Ecology, doi: 10.1890/12-1936.1.

Allan E., Weisser, W.W., Fischer, M., Schulze, E.-D. et al. (2013) A comparison of the strength of biodiversity effects across multiple functions. Oecologia, DOI 10.1007/s00442-012-2589-0