Habitat structure mediates biodiversity effects on ecosystem properties
Abstract
Much of what we know about the role of biodiversity in mediating ecosystem processes and function stems from manipulative experiments, which have largely been performed in isolated, homogeneous environments that do not incorporate habitat structure or allow natural community dynamics to develop. Here, we use a range of habitat configurations in a model marine benthic system to investigate the effects of species composition, resource heterogeneity and patch connectivity on ecosystem properties at both the patch (bioturbation intensity) and multi-patch (nutrient concentration) scale. We show that allowing fauna to move and preferentially select patches alters local species composition and density distributions, which has negative effects on ecosystem processes (bioturbation intensity) at the patch scale, but overall positive effects on ecosystem functioning (nutrient concentration) at the multi-patch scale. Our findings provide important evidence that community dynamics alter in response to localized resource heterogen- eity and that these small-scale variations in habitat structure influence species contributions to ecosystem properties at larger scales. We conclude that habitat complexity forms an important buffer against dis- turbance and that contemporary estimates of the level of biodiversity required for maintaining future multi-functional systems may need to be revised.Citation
Habitat structure mediates biodiversity effects on ecosystem properties 2011, 278 (1717):2510 Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesJournal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological SciencesDOI
10.1098/rspb.2010.2414Type
ArticleISSN
0962-84521471-2954
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1098/rspb.2010.2414
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