Soil chemical laboratory analyses of VIPs and selected plots on Site A. Cation exchange capacity, base saturation and soil fertility attributes of six depth increments per plot.

Plant functional traits, especially leaf traits, are accepted proxies for ecosystem properties. Typically, they are measured at the species level, neglecting within-species variation. While there is extensive knowledge about functional trait chang...

Soil chemical laboratory analyses of VIPs and VIPReps on Site A. Contents of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur as well as pH-values (in H2O and KCl) of five depth increments per plot.

Biomass is a proxy for assessing herb layer productivity. In contrast to most traits it is easy practicable and therefore feasible repeatedly. Since the proportion of functional groups is informative for community structure biomass was harvested s...

Soil physical analyses of all 27 comparative study plots. Mass-% of 8 grain size classes of fine earth < 2 mm from soil horizons of each soil profile per CSP. Grain sizes discriminate between sand, silt, and clay.

Questions: One tenet of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research is the dependence of ecosystem functions on species-specific differences in traits. Community assembly theory predicts niche differentiation among the constituent species, for...