Combined negative effects of simultaneous perturbations on grassland functionality
- 1Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL
Abstract
1. Grassland ecosystems are pivotal for global biodiversity, carbon (C) storage and food security. This biome, however, together with the ecosystem services it provides, is threatened by global change perturbations. These perturbations rarely occur in isolation and most often affect environments simultaneously, which is a pressing issue in ecology. Nevertheless, most of the research conducted so far has focussed on single simultaneous perturbations or pairs thereof. The few examples considering the effect of more than two simultaneous perturbations focussed only on plants or soil separately, which ignores the potential buffering or feedback effects on ecosystem functioning induced by plant-soils interactions. 2. To tackle this knowledge gap, we used an experimental setup involving mesocosms (soil and plants intact) collected in an extensively managed permanent grassland. Mesocosms were arranged in a greenhouse experiment where we applied individual and combined global change perturbations (up to ten in total) including application of fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics, simulated trampling and grazing, heat stress and drought. Measured ecosystem functions and properties included a large set of biological, physical and chemical soil and plant associated variables. 3. Results showed that multiple perturbations in most cases had negative effects irrespective of the direction found for individual perturbations. However, in contrast to previous bare soil experiments, we only found scarce evidence for substantial synergistic effects of simultaneous perturbations in our experiment conducted with mesocosms that contained vegetation. This suggests a mitigating impact of plants on soil responses to global change. Moreover, we found a strong dominative effect of drought on ecosystem functioning, driving most of the effects observed. 4. Synthesis: Our results highlight the importance of evaluating global change impacts under more realistic settings, i.e., applying multiple perturbations simultaneously and including plant-soil interactions. Mitigation of global change in terrestrial ecosystems will only be possible once we holistically understand how ecosystems respond to altered conditions.
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BibTeX
@misc{fioratti2026combined,
title = {{Combined negative effects of simultaneous perturbations on grassland functionality}},
author = {M. Fioratti and S. Gombeer and J. Holmes and S. Zimmerman and M. C. Rillig and A. C. Risch and I. Cordero},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.28.754907},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.754907v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Combined negative effects of simultaneous perturbations on grassland functionality
AU - M. Fioratti
AU - S. Gombeer
AU - J. Holmes
AU - S. Zimmerman
AU - M. C. Rillig
AU - A. C. Risch
AU - I. Cordero
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.28.754907
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.754907v1
AB - 1. Grassland ecosystems are pivotal for global biodiversity, carbon (C) storage and food security. This biome, however, together with the ecosystem services it provides, is threatened by global change perturbations. These perturbations rarely occur in isolation and most often affect environments simultaneously, which is a pressing issue in ecology. Nevertheless, most of the research conducted so far has focussed on single simultaneous perturbations or pairs thereof. The few examples considering the effect of more than two simultaneous perturbations focussed only on plants or soil separately, which ignores the potential buffering or feedback effects on ecosystem functioning induced by plant-soils interactions. 2. To tackle this knowledge gap, we used an experimental setup involving mesocosms (soil and plants intact) collected in an extensively managed permanent grassland. Mesocosms were arranged in a greenhouse experiment where we applied individual and combined global change perturbations (up to ten in total) including application of fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics, simulated trampling and grazing, heat stress and drought. Measured ecosystem functions and properties included a large set of biological, physical and chemical soil and plant associated variables. 3. Results showed that multiple perturbations in most cases had negative effects irrespective of the direction found for individual perturbations. However, in contrast to previous bare soil experiments, we only found scarce evidence for substantial synergistic effects of simultaneous perturbations in our experiment conducted with mesocosms that contained vegetation. This suggests a mitigating impact of plants on soil responses to global change. Moreover, we found a strong dominative effect of drought on ecosystem functioning, driving most of the effects observed. 4. Synthesis: Our results highlight the importance of evaluating global change impacts under more realistic settings, i.e., applying multiple perturbations simultaneously and including plant-soil interactions. Mitigation of global change in terrestrial ecosystems will only be possible once we holistically understand how ecosystems respond to altered conditions.
ER -