IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v241y2026ics0921800925003350.html

Plant diversity to cope with increased drought risk in grasslands

Author

Listed:
  • Alou, Nicolas
  • Schaub, Sergei
  • Suter, Matthias
  • Lüscher, Andreas
  • Finger, Robert

Abstract

Grasslands are essential for global milk and meat production. Climate change and growing frequency of extreme weather events are expected to increase variability in production. This study explores how plant diversity can act as natural insurance against drought risks in grasslands using theoretical model and simulation. Examining sown diversity from a portfolio perspective, we identify mechanisms underlying its insurance value, including the statistical averaging effects and community asynchrony. Our findings demonstrate that, within productive grasslands, modest plant diversity can mitigate a substantial portion (37 %) of the risk, offering a sustainable climate adaptation strategy in production-oriented ecosystems.

Suggested Citation

  • Alou, Nicolas & Schaub, Sergei & Suter, Matthias & Lüscher, Andreas & Finger, Robert, 2026. "Plant diversity to cope with increased drought risk in grasslands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:241:y:2026:i:c:s0921800925003350
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108852
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800925003350
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108852?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:241:y:2026:i:c:s0921800925003350. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.