Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39838124›Full record

ArticleCommunications biology2025

Interactive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass, abiotic factors, and plant diversity in global grasslands.

Marie Spohn, Sumanta Bagchi, Jonathan D Bakker, Elizabeth T Borer, Clinton Carbutt, Jane A Catford, Christopher R Dickman, Nico Eisenhauer, Anu Eskelinen, Nicole Hagenah and 18 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Communications biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Intense solar radiation constrains plant species richness in global grasslands.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

28 authors.

Marie SpohnDept of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden. marie.spohn@slu.se.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-7317
Sumanta BagchiCentre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4841-6748
Jonathan D BakkerSchool of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8973-2771
Elizabeth T BorerDept of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2259-5853
Clinton CarbuttScientific Services, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, Cascades, South Africa.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1540-0029
Jane A CatfordDept of Geography, King's College London, London, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0582-5960
Christopher R DickmanSchool of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1067-3730
Nico EisenhauerGerman Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0371-6720
Anu EskelinenGerman Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1707-5263
Nicole HagenahMammal Research Institute, Dept of Zoology & Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
Yann HautierEcology and Biodiversity Group, Dept of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Sally E KoernerDept of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6403-7513
Kimberly J KomatsuDept of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7056-4547
Lauri LaanistoDept of Biodiversity and Nature Tourism, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia.
Ylva LekbergMPG Ranch and University of Montana, Montana, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1033-8032
Jason P MartinaDept of Biology, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3912-4911
Holly MartinsonDept of Biology, McDaniel College, Westminster, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1462-0051
Meelis PärtelInstitute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, J. Liivi 2, Tartu, Estonia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5874-0138
Pablo L PeriNational Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), Rio Gallegos, Argentina.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5398-4408
Anita C RischSwiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0531-8336
Nicholas G SmithDept of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7048-4387
Carly StevensLancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2390-1763
G F Ciska VeenDept of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen, the Netherlands.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7736-9998
Risto VirtanenEcology & Genetics, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8295-8217
Laura YahdjianInstituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA), CONICET, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9635-1221
Alyssa L YoungDept of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, USA.
Hillary S YoungDept Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0449-8582
Eric W SeabloomDept of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6780-9259

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Grasslands cover approximately a third of the Earth's land surface and account for about a third of terrestrial carbon storage. Yet, we lack strong predictive models of grassland plant biomass, the primary source of carbon in grasslands. This lack of predictive ability may arise from the assumption of linear relationships between plant biomass and the environment and an underestimation of interactions of environmental variables. Using data from 116 grasslands on six continents, we show unimodal relationships between plant biomass and ecosystem characteristics, such as mean annual precipitation and soil nitrogen. Further, we found that soil nitrogen and plant diversity interacted in their relationships with plant biomass, such that plant diversity and biomass were positively related at low levels of nitrogen and negatively at elevated levels of nitrogen. Our results show that it is critical to account for the interactive and unimodal relationships between plant biomass and several environmental variables to accurately include plant biomass in global vegetation and carbon models.

Indexed as

BiodiversityBiomassGrasslandPlantsCarbonEcosystemNitrogenSoilCarbonNitrogenSoil

Identifiers

PMID39838124
PMCPMC11751326

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.