DOI: 10.5061/dryad.f7m0cfz33
title: Belowground niche partitioning is maintained under extreme drought

description: Belowground niche partitioning presents a key mechanism maintaining
 species coexistence and diversity. Its importance is currently reinforced
 under climate-change-altering soil hydrological conditions. However,
 experimental tests examining the magnitude of its change under climate
 change are scarce. We combined measurements of oxygen stable isotopes to
 infer plant water-uptake depths and extreme drought manipulation in
 grasslands. Belowground niche partitioning was evidenced by different
 water-uptake depths of co-occurring species under ambient and extreme
 drought conditions despite an increased overlap among species due to a
 shift to shallower soil layers under drought. A co-occurrence of
 contrasting strategies related to change of species water-uptake depths’
 distribution was likely key for species to maintain some extent of
 belowground niche partitioning and could contribute to stabilizing
 coexistence under drought. Our results suggest that belowground niche
 partitioning could mitigate negative effects on diversity imposed by
 extreme drought under future climate.
description: # Belowground niche partitioning is maintained under extreme drought
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.f7m0cfz33](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.f7m0cfz33) R script and data used to infer plant water-uptake depths under ambient conditions and after extreme drought manipulation in a semi-natural temperate mesic grassland in the Swabian Jura, Southern Germany. The contents of this folder correspond to the article: Weides, S.E., Hájek, T., Liancourt, P., Herberich, M.M., Kramp, R.E., Tomiolo, S., Pacheco-Riaño, L.C., Tielbörger, K., Májeková, M. (2023) Belowground niche partitioning is maintained under extreme drought. Ecology Comments and requests should be addressed to Sophie Weides (sophie.weides@gmail.com) or Maria Májeková (maria.majekova@gmail.com). ## **Author(s)** Sophie E. Weides<sup>1,2,\*</sup>, Tomáš Hájek<sup>3,4</sup>, Pierre Liancourt<sup>1,3,5</sup>, Maximiliane M. Herberich<sup>6</sup>, Rosa E. Kramp<sup>1</sup>, Sara Tomiolo<sup>1</sup>, L. Camila Pacheco-Riaño<sup>7</sup>, Katja Tielbörger<sup>1</sup>, Maria Májeková<sup>1</sup> <sup> </sup> <sup>1 </sup>Plant Ecology Group, Institute of Evolution and Ecology, University of Tübingen, Germany <sup>2</sup> Ecology Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Switzerland <sup>3</sup> Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic <sup>4</sup> Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic <sup>5</sup> Botany Department, State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Germany <sup>6 </sup>Institute of Botany, BOKU Vienna, Austria <sup>7 </sup>Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, Norway ## Description of the data and file structure ##### File list weides\_et\_al\_2023.R Isotopes\_gradient\_all.csv Plants\_isotopes.csv Proportion\_uptake\_depth.csv Species\_names.csv Discrimination\_MixSIAR.csv Weight.csv ##### File descriptions *weides\_et\_al\_2023.R* is the only script that needs to be opened. It contains the linear model, the Bayesian Mixing model and the plots and will create the needed folders when its run. *Isotopes\_gradient\_all.csv* is the file containing the soil data, meaning the site, plot, subplot (quadrat), the soil depth, the treatment and the oxygen stable isotopes. *Plants\_isotopes.csv* is the file containing the plant data, meaning the site, species, plot, subplot (quadrat), the treatment and the oxygen stable isotopes. *Proportion\_uptake\_depth.csv* is a file generated by hand out of the outputs of the Bayesian mixing model that is used uniquely for plotting the results. *Species\_names.csv* contains a complete species list with full names explaining the abbreviations used in the dataset and code. *Discrimination\_MixSIAR.csv* is needed for the Bayesian Mixing Model. *Weight.csv* contains the belowground biomass data, meaning site, plot, subplot (quadrant), treatment and the weight. **Note:** All of the files (except *Species\_names.csv*) must be within your working directory for the analysis to work.