Seminar: Markus Lange

Plant diversity stimulates soil nitrogen storage, which could reduce the requirement for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and thus its negative impacts on climate, biodiversity and the environment. This relationship is attributed to improved nitrogen use and N2 fixation by legumes. Here, we investigated the underlying mechanisms making use of a long-term biodiversity experiment. We found enhanced atmospheric N2 fixation with plant diversity, independent of legumes. On average 36.6 kg N ha^-1 yr^-1 were sequestered with high diversity plant communities, 6.6 times more than with monocultures. This effect was primarily mediated by increased root exudation, fueling the free-living diazotrophs.