Anthropogenic disturbances have led to substantial declines in grassland legumes worldwide. Through seven years of field experiments, our results demonstrate that legume restoration in natural grasslands can sustainably provide higher biomass production through enhancing compensatory growth in natural grasslands that have suffered from prolonged or intense defoliation. This highlights the critical role of leguminous species in a long-term grassland restoration.
Guo, M., Guo, T., Zhou, J. et al. Restored legume acts as a “nurse” to facilitate plant compensatory growth and biomass production in mown grasslands. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 44, 60 (2024).
