About the Authors

Nico Eisenhauer

nico.eisenhauer@web.de

Affiliation Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America

Alexandru Milcu

Affiliation Division of Biology, NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College London, Ascot, United Kingdom

Alexander C. W. Sabais

Affiliation Institute of Zoology, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany

Holger Bessler

Affiliation Department of Plant Nutrition and Fertilization, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Johanna Brenner

Affiliation J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

Christof Engels

Affiliation Department of Plant Nutrition and Fertilization, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Bernhard Klarner

Affiliation J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

Mark Maraun

Affiliation J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

Stephan Partsch

Affiliation Institute of Zoology, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany

Christiane Roscher

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

Felix Schonert

Affiliation Institute of Zoology, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany

Vicky M. Temperton

Affiliation IBG-2 Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Juelich, Germany

Karolin Thomisch

Affiliation J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

Alexandra Weigelt

Affiliation Department of Botany and Functional Biodiversity, Institute of Biology I, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

Wolfgang W. Weisser

Affiliation Institute of Ecology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Jena, Germany

Stefan Scheu

Affiliation J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NE WWW SS. Performed the experiments: NE AM ACWS HB JB BK MM SP CR FS VMT KT AW. Analyzed the data: NE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CE WWW SS. Wrote the paper: NE SS. Commented on previous versions of the manuscript: NE AM MM CR VMT SS.