Title : Effects of plant evolution on nutrient cycling couple aboveground and belowground 1 processes

$ : Equal contribution 8. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was. ABSTRACT: 9 Plant strategies for nutrient acquisition and recycling are key components of ecosystem 10 functioning. How the evolution of such strategies modifies ecosystem functioning and 11 services is still not well understood. In the present work, we aim at understanding how the 12 evolution of different phenotypic traits link aboveground and belowground processes, thereby 13 affecting the functioning of the ecosystem at different scales and in different realms. Using a 14 simple model, we follow the dynamics of a limiting nutrient inside an ecosystem. Considering 15 trade-offs between aboveground and belowground functional traits, we study the effects of the 16 evolution of such strategies on ecosystem properties (amount of mineral nutrient, total plant 17 biomass, dead organic matter and primary productivity) and whether such properties are 18 maximized. Our results show that when evolution leads to a stable outcome, it minimizes the 19 quantity of nutrient available (following Tilman's R* rule). We also show that considering the 20 evolution of aboveground and belowground functional traits simultaneously, total plant 21 biomass and primary productivity are not necessarily maximized through evolution. The 22 coupling of aboveground and belowground processes through evolution may largely diminish 23 predicted standing biomass and productivity (extinction may even occur), and impact the 24 evolutionary resilience (ie, the return time to previous phenotypic states) of the ecosystem in 25 face of external disturbances. We show that changes in plant biomass and their effects on 26 evolutionary change can be understood by accounting for the links between nutrient uptake 27 and mineralization, and for indirect effects of nutrient uptake on the amount of detritus in the 28 system. 29 30 33. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was .