Mechanisms driving diversity–productivity relationships differ between exotic and native communities and are affected by gastropod herbivory

Biodiversity experiments have shown that productivity usually increases with plant species richness. However, most of those studies disregarded the importance of trophic interactions to the diversity–productivity relationship, and focused on the loss of native species while ignoring invasions by exotic species. Yet, as functional complementarity and the impact of plant antagonists are likely to differ between native and exotic communities, the diversity–productivity relationship may change when native communities are invaded by exotic species. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to test how diversity effects, evenness, and productivity differed between exotic and native assemblages of grassland plants, and how these communities were influenced by slug herbivory. In line with other experiments, we found higher productivity in exotic than in native communities. However, different mechanisms (complementarity vs. selection effect) contributed to the positive diversity–productivity relationships in exotic vs. native communities. Against expectations, native communities showed much lower evenness and a greater selection effect, suggesting that competitive dominance among native species may be even stronger than among exotic species. Slug herbivory decreased productivity independently of species origin and species diversity. However, exotic communities showed a threefold higher complementarity effect than native communities in the absence of slugs, which was mainly driven by differences in the responses of native and exotic legumes and nonleguminous herbs. Our results imply that underlying mechanisms for the positive diversity–productivity relationship differ between native and exotic communities in the early stages of community development, and that differential responses of plant functional groups to generalist herbivory can contribute to this pattern. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-015-3395-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.