The Jena Experiment

@uni-jena.de

@ebelingae.bsky.social
@terrecolgroup.bsky.social

New study by @bmwildermuth.bsky.social et al. in @natecoevo.nature.com

They asked whether arthropod biomass declines due to species loss per se, or which species are lost, or because of shrinking abundances of persisting species. 🪲🕷️🐝🦗

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

New paper by Solbach et al. @newphyt.bsky.social

They find that repeated summer droughts weaken plant defense against protistan plant parasites 🌱🦠

doi.org/10.1111/nph....

@ag-bonkowski.bsky.social
@dumack.bsky.social
@eisenhauerlab.bsky.social

Arthropod species loss underpins biomass declines - Nature Ecology & Evolution Insects are declining in many regions. Here the authors show that arthropod biomass losses in Jena Experiment and Biodiversity Exploratories time series are driven more by species loss than by species...

One more piece of evidence, on a growing pile, that insects are in decline.

"...the general species turnover and biomass trends emphasize ongoing arthropod community simplification, and that even common species may be increasingly under threat."

🪲🪳🧪🌍

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Insektensterben: Studie zeigt Hauptursache für Biomasse-Rückgang | MDR.DE Über 90 Prozent des Rückgangs der Insektenbiomasse in deutschen Grünlandflächen sind auf Artenverlust zurückzuführen. Das ist das zentrale Ergebnis einer neuen Studie, veröffentlicht in Nature Ecology...

Nette Zusamfassung (auch Audio) unserer aktuellen Forschung zum Insektensterben 🪲 vom MDR:

www.mdr.de/wissen/umwel...

Arthropod species loss underpins biomass declines - Nature Ecology & Evolution Insects are declining in many regions. Here the authors show that arthropod biomass losses in Jena Experiment and Biodiversity Exploratories time series are driven more by species loss than by species...

What are the mechanisms behind terrestrial arthropod declines? @bmwildermuth.bsky.social and colleagues have some answers

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@bexplo.bsky.social
@idiv-research.bsky.social
@jena-experiment.bsky.social

Registration for the #BE20Conference is now open.
We’re celebrating 20 years of the Biodiversity Exploratories with our first international conference. ✨
We appreciate when the news circulates in the community.
www.biodiversity-exploratories.de/de/be20/

See you there. 🙂

@dfg.de @sgn.one

New study on arthropod declines @natecoevo.nature.com 🪲

In two time series @jena-experiment.bsky.social & @bexplo.bsky.social we show how community (dis)assembly underpins local biomass declines.

It mostly boils down to species loss, with identity losing relevance.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Majority of local insect biomass decline linked to species loss A new study shows that over 90% of insect biomass declines are driven by shrinking species numbers, posing a risk to ecosystem function.

📢 Over 90% of local insect biomass decline in German grasslands is explained by species loss.

“By the end of the study period, species loss, regardless of rarity or size, had become the main driver of decline”, says @bmwildermuth.bsky.social of #iDiv and @uni-jena.de

www.idiv.de/majority-of-...

Huge congratulations to Pamela Medina van Berkum on successfully defending her PhD! Supervised by @sunsicker.bsky.social and Jonathan Gershenzon, her work on how plant biodiversity shapes chemical defenses bridges ecology, chemistry, and evolution. Pam is now part of Sybille’s group at @uni-kiel.de.

@eisenhauerlab.bsky.social
@agwirthweigelt.bsky.social
@ebelingae.bsky.social

This week, we had a great retreat with our PhDs, Postdocs & PIs in Leipzig @idiv-research.bsky.social

Apart from sharing our progress, we hosted a session on extreme events with guest speakers @sebastian-sippel.bsky.social & @miguelmahecha.bsky.social
Thanks for the insightful talks & discussion!

Intraspecific plant chemodiversity at plot level has contrasting effects on arthropod functional groups Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

#Chemodiversity is an important driver for plant–arthropod interactions 🌿 🪲 🐝. For more info check out this very impressive work by RU members Lina Ojeda-Prieto, @robinheinennl.bsky.social binheinennl.bsky.social and Wolfgang W. Weisser together with Eliecer L. Moreno doi.org/10.1111/1365...

@ebelingae.bsky.social
@eisenhauerlab.bsky.social
@agwirthweigelt.bsky.social
@sunsicker.bsky.social @terrecolgroup.bsky.social

New paper from our JenaTron facility:

Bröcher et al. show that reciprocal effects between plants and invertebrate herbivores vary with plant species richness, plant history and soil history.

Herbivores want nutritious plants with soil history, while they reduce plant height in monocultures

🐛🌱

A new paper co-led by @henneckejustus.bsky.social
in @newphyt.bsky.social shows that

Grassland & forest community-level root traits along the fast-slow & the collaboraton gradient relate to many ecosystem functions.
➡️ future changes in plant composition may strongly alter ecosystem functioning
🌱🌲

#iDivConference2025 today I present our study co-lead w C Guimaraes-Steinicke. Great work by our student K Wende.
& great collaborators
@agwirthweigelt.bsky.social A Weigelt, S Saxena & A Anwar.

Floral vs veg structure fingerprints from #TLS intensity

#JenaExperiment #Phenology #biodiversity

Ecological synthesis including forest ecosystems, grassland, land use, climate change, time series, stability, ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, species interaction networks

Three exciting #PostDoc 🧑‍🔬👩‍🔬🧕 positions on #Ecological #Synthesis at TU Darmstadt @tuda.bsky.social for Reassembly #rainforest 🇪🇨 🌱🌴🦜 & #Biodiversity Exploratories 🌲🐄🚜🪲🐝🥀@bexplo.bsky.social
Please spread widely ✉️♥️▶️ & apply quickly 🙃
www.reassembly.de/the-team/job...

1. @neobiota.pensoft.net
2. @ecol-evol.bsky.social

@nbuchmann.bsky.social
@ebelingae.bsky.social

Traits of the Leaf Economics Spectrum Do Not Always Relate to Species Biomass Proportions in Grassland Communities of Varying Diversity We studied traits of the “leaf economics spectrum” (LES) in 138 experimental grassland communities composed of 20 grassland species, which represented different strategies in spatial resource acquisi...

Two new studies from our site show that

1. Plant diversity decreases the competitive superiority of non-native invaders (Roscher 2025)
doi.org/10.3897/neob...

2. Traits of the leaf economics spectrum do not always relate to species biomass (Bachmann et al. 2025)
doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

🌱🍃

Why are we losing arthropod biomass? Because we're losing species? Because of which species we lose? Or because of declining abundances?

Synthesizing time series from @jena-experiment.bsky.social & @bexplo.bsky.social I will present some answers @gfoesoc.bsky.social
#gfoe2025

Tue 2 Sept, 11 am 🕷️🪲

Stay tuned for more updates and make sure to tag us with #gfoe2025 so we can feature your insights of the conference. We are looking forward to see you next week!

@cofeuniwue.bsky.social
@globalchangeeco.bsky.social
@ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de

Leonore Hafermann getting inspiration for her PhD experiments from the DroughtNet site at Bad Lauchstädt

Nico Eisenhauer talking us on a tour I'd the EcoTron facility at Bad Lauchstädt

Standing under the canopy of the MyDiv experimental forest

It was a short visit, but wonderful to catch up with @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social again and to see some inspirational experimental sites at Bad Lauchstädt!

🌱 #Fieldwork days at The Jena Experiment - @jena-experiment.bsky.social!
Scanning roots with a minirhizotron, tracking seasonal changes & traits, plus plant surveys & soil checks. Led by PhD candidate Srijna Saxena with support from Tom Künne. Can’t wait to see what the data reveal!
#RootTraits

That's us in the picture! 🖼️
Read about diversity-stability relationships in biodiversity experiments such as ours in @natecoevo.nature.com

Stabilizing effects of biodiversity arise from species-specific dynamics rather than interspecific interactions in grasslands - Nature Ecology & Evolution The role of interspecific interactions in biodiversity–ecosystem stability relationships is unclear. Here the authors develop a theoretical approach and show that empirical diversity–stability relatio...

Meng et al. develop a theoretical approach and show that empirical diversity–stability relationships in grasslands are best explained by species-specific dynamics rather than by interspecific interactions www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

👇Out in @oikosjournal.bsky.social

New research from our Ecotron facility by @elisabethboenisch.bsky.social, @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social et al 🌱

Das Jena-Experiment läuft seit 18 Jahren: Wie der Rückgang von Biodiversität unsere Lebensgrundlage bedroht Im Jena-Experiment untersuchen Forschende, welche Folgen der Verlust biologischer Vielfalt für Ökosysteme hat. Dabei beobachten sie auch ein Phänomen, das sie „Social Distancing auf der Wiese“ nennen.

Wie Artenvielfalt der Landwirtschaft nützt und wie der Rückgang der #Biodiversität unsere Lebensgrundlagen bedroht, schildert Roland Schulz in seinem Artikel über das seit 18 Jahren laufende @jena-experiment.bsky.social im Tagesspiegel (€) www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/das-j...