A substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity-stability relationship remains unclear. Here we use data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments and structural equation modelling to investigate the roles of species richness, phylogenetic diversity and both the diversity and community-weighted mean of functional traits representing the 'fast-slow' leaf economics spectrum in driving the diversity-stability relationship. We found that high species richness and phylogenetic diversity stabilize biomass production via enhanced asynchrony in the performance of co-occurring species. Contrary to expectations, low phylogenetic diversity enhances ecosystem stability directly, albeit weakly. While the diversity of fast-slow functional traits has a weak effect on ecosystem stability, communities dominated by slow species enhance ecosystem stability by increasing mean biomass production relative to the standard deviation of biomass over time. Our in-depth, integrative assessment of factors influencing the diversity-stability relationship demonstrates a more multicausal relationship than has been previously acknowledged.

Biodiversity Macroecology and Biogeography Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany

Biological Sciences University of Southampton Southampton UK

Department of Biogeography BayCEER University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany

Department of Biology Algoma University Sault Sainte Marie Ontario Canada

Department of Biology Ecology and Biodiversity Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels Belgium

Department of Biology Graduate Degree Program in Ecology Colorado State University Fort Collins CO USA

Department of Biology Utah State University Logan UT USA

Department of Biosciences College of Science Swansea University Swansea UK

Department of Botany Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia České Budějovice Czech Republic

Department of Community Ecology Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ Halle Germany

Department of Disturbance Ecology BayCEER University of Bayreuth Bayreuth Germany

Department of Ecology and Ecosystem Management School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan Technical University of Munich Freising Germany

Department of Ecology Evolution and Behavior University of Minnesota Saint Paul MN USA

Department of Ecology Evolution and Organismal Biology Iowa State University Ames IA USA

Department of Forest Resources University of Minnesota St Paul MN USA

Department of Functional Ecology Institute of Botany CAS Třeboň Czech Republic

Department of Geobotany Faculty of Biology Moscow State University Moscow Russia

Department of Physiological Diversity Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ Leipzig Germany

Department of Plant Sciences University of Oxford Oxford UK

Department of Theoretical and Applied Science University of Insubria Varese Italy

Ecology and Biodiversity Group Department of Biology Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands

Environmental Biology Department Institute of Environmental Sciences CML Leiden University Leiden The Netherlands

Experimental Plant Ecology Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology Greifswald University Greifswald Germany

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig Germany

Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment Western Sydney University Penrith New South Wales Australia

Institute of Agricultural Sciences ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Institute of Biology Leipzig University Leipzig Germany

Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences Landscape Ecology Group University of Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany

Institute of Ecology University of Innsbruck Innsbruck Austria

Institute of Ecology University of Jena Jena Germany

Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Jonah Ventures Manhattan KS USA

Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena Germany

Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Yonsei University Seoul Korea

Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre Frankfurt Germany

Systems Ecology Department of Ecological Science Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Netherlands

USDA Agricultural Research Service Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory Temple TX USA

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