Extended Data Figure 4: Productivity during and after both climate events and normal years for monocultures and mixtures of 16 species.

Values shown are predicted means and 95% confidence intervals from the mixed-effects model. Productivity tends to be decreased during dry events and increased during wet events. This trend is reversed during the year after climate events. This pattern of overshooting normal levels of productivity during recovery 1 year after climate events is consistent with damped oscillations, rather than monotonic recovery (Extended Data Fig. 1). Relatively high productivity after extreme droughts could be due to increased nutrient availability and/or decreased abundance of herbivores as a result of reduced plant productivity during the drought. This might be especially true for low-diversity communities, which have the lowest productivity during drought, possibly explaining why biodiversity increases resilience after extremely dry years (Fig. 1c). Similarly, relatively low productivity after extremely wet years might be due to decreased nutrient availability and/or increased abundance of enemies as a result of increased plant productivity during the wet event. This might be especially true for high-diversity communities, which have the highest productivity during wet years, possibly explaining why biodiversity decreases resilience after extremely wet years (Fig. 1c). Dashed horizontal lines show normal productivity levels.