Peak district grasslands hold key to global plant diversity

  • Scientists from the University of Sheffield use Peak District grassland to answer a globally important question
  • The team discovered how a large variety of plants are able to grow in one ecosystem when it is low in key nutrients
  • The findings show that plants are able to share nutrients, which could explain high levels of biodiversity in many ecosystems around the world

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have found that plants are able to co-exist because they share key nutrients, using grasslands from the Peak District.

In a study published in

Nature Plants

, the team investigated how some ecosystems can have high biodiversity when all of these plants are competing for the same nutrients. They looked especially at ecosystems which are high in biodiversity but low in phosphorus, an essential nutrient for plant growth.

To do this they used soil taken from Peak District limestone grassland which is low in phosphorus. They then injected different types of phosphorus into the soil which allowed them to track which plants took up which type of phosphorus.

Their findings show that plants are able to share out the phosphorus by each preferring to take it up in a different form. This sharing is known as resource partitioning.

Professor Gareth Phoenix, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, who led the study, said: “The plants had different preferences for the various phosphorus compounds. Some showed greater uptake from the inorganic phosphorus form of phosphate, some preferred to use a mineral bound phosphorus compounds such as calcium phosphate, and others were better at using the organic compound DNA. Critically, this means the plants can co-exist because they are using different chemical forms of phosphorus in the soil. In other words, they are sharing the phosphorus.

“Our research answers the global question of how we get very high levels of plant species biodiversity, especially in ecosystems with very low amounts of soil phosphorus. By helping to understand how we get high levels of biodiversity, we can also better protect ecosystems and conserve their biodiversity.”

The research used different radioactive compounds to directly trace the phosphorus from the soil into the plants to accurately trace which soil phosphorus compound the phosphorus in the plant came from. Only very tiny amounts of radioactive phosphorus are needed to detect the uptake, meaning the team could look at the natural behaviour of the plants in natural soil, and with small amounts of phosphorus, as you would find in nature.

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The research, Niche differentiation and plasticity in soil phosphorus acquisition among co-occurring plants, is published in

Nature Plants

. The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

For further information please contact: Emma Griffiths, Media and PR Assistant, University of Sheffield, 0114 222 1034,

[email protected]


Notes to editors


The University of Sheffield

With almost 29,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the world’s leading universities.

A member of the UK’s prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2018 and for the last eight years has been ranked in the top five UK universities for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Glaxo SmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.

This part of information is sourced from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uos-pdg032320.php

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