Producer-decomposer co-dependency influences biodiversity effects
Article Abstract:
Unicellular green algal (producer) species richness and heterotrophic bacterial (decomposer) species richness has been simultaneously manipulated in 166 freshwater, microbial microcosms to determine whether the producer-decomposer co-dependency affects producer diversity impacts on ecosystem functioning. The manipulations supplemented bacterial diversity by adding up to 12 further species. There was found to be a potentially strong impact of the producer-decomposer co-dependency on ecosystem response to altering biodiversity. Production was a joint function of producer and decomposer diversity, with producer production only being positively linked with producer diversity in the absence of experimental manipulation of decomposer diversity.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2000
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Paradise sustained
Article Abstract:
The way the magnitudes and sustainability of ecosystem functions are governed by biodiversity is examined along with the suspicion of whether a loss of biodiversity is a major cause of ecosystems becoming less productive and less stable. It was found that biodiversity may indeed govern sustainability but the data set used for this study cannot detect fluctuations in reef ecology of less than a few million years, disappointing ecologists and ecosystems biologists.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2005
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Biodiversity enhances ecosystem reliability
Article Abstract:
Research shows that an increase in the number of species of replicated microbial microcosms per functional group resulted in replicate communities with greater consistency in density and biomass measures. Biodiversity preservation could lead to the provision of sufficient redundancy, where redundancy is the existence of multiple species within each functional group. Biodiversity can act as a type of biological insurance against certain badly-performing species.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1997
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