Fig. 1: Overview of how temporal changes of plant diversity effects on community productivity are expected to be related to trait-dependent shifts in species-level overyielding.
A Effects of plant diversity strengthen over time as productivity increases more quickly in diverse plant communities. B At early stages, species-level overyielding in diverse plant communities is higher for acquisitive (ΔYA) than for conservative (ΔYC) species. Over time, the overyielding of conservative species (SPConservative) is expected to increase, whereas the overyielding of acquisitive species (SPAcquisitive) is expected either to decrease (solid red line) or increase slightly due to the decreasing performance of monocultures (dotted red line). C Contributions to community overyielding shift over time, from greater overyielding for acquisitive species at early stages to greater overyielding for conservative species at later stages of community development, regardless of whether overyielding of acquisitive species decreases (solid green line) or slightly increases (dashed green line).
