In all four seasons (summer 2008, autumn 2008, spring 2009 and winter 2010) the gravimetric soil water content of the mineral soil in up to 6 soil layers was determined. Soil sampling was performed in parallel with nitrate and ammonium extractions.

Soil samples were taken from two soil layers in the Pilotexperiment for C and N analysis in Winter 2010 . This work aimed to get a general idea about the C and N concentrations and the uniformity among the four different blocks of the Pilot Experi...

In order to develop species-specific allometric equations , the biomass of four species (species pool 1) used by SP5 were measured in parallel with our 15N labelling campaigns (summer and autum 2009, winter and spring 2010). The allometric equati...

Traits are indispensable to quantify the functional diversity of plots and to explore the existence of functional groups. Furthermore, functional diversity, in addition to species richness, can be used as alternative explanatory variable for biodi...

We performed an extensive vegetation survey of the central plots of each CSP in GNNR in 2008. Herb layer communities can serve as ecosystem functioning variable, which is of importance for all community and ecosystem-based statements. We made a de...

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...