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The influence of balanced and imbalanced resource supply on biodiversity-functioning relationship across ecosystems
- Source :
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1694):1694. The Royal Society
- Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- Numerous studies show that increasing species richness leads to higher ecosystem productivity. This effect is often attributed to more efficient portioning of multiple resources in communities with higher numbers of competing species, indicating the role of resource supply and stoichiometry for biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships. Here, we merged theory on ecological stoichiometry with a framework of biodiversity–ecosystem functioning to understand how resource use transfers into primary production. We applied a structural equation model to define patterns of diversity–productivity relationships with respect to available resources. Meta-analysis was used to summarize the findings across ecosystem types ranging from aquatic ecosystems to grasslands and forests. As hypothesized, resource supply increased realized productivity and richness, but we found significant differences between ecosystems and study types. Increased richness was associated with increased productivity, although this effect was not seen in experiments. More even communities had lower productivity, indicating that biomass production is often maintained by a few dominant species, and reduced dominance generally reduced ecosystem productivity. This synthesis, which integrates observational and experimental studies in a variety of ecosystems and geographical regions, exposes common patterns and differences in biodiversity–functioning relationships, and increases the mechanistic understanding of changes in ecosystems productivity.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Population Dynamics
Biodiversity
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Models, Biological
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Ecological stoichiometry
Dominance (ecology)
Animals
Ecosystem
Biomass
Plant Physiological Phenomena
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
2. Zero hunger
Ecology
Aquatic ecosystem
Community structure
Articles
15. Life on land
Plankton
international
Species evenness
Species richness
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14712970 and 09628436
- Volume :
- 371
- Issue :
- 1694
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e9aaa673b379aadafb879db864b39980