Natural Environment Research Council. Grant Number: NE/D013305/

Bailey, RA

Dossena, M

Gamfeldt, L

Perkins, DM

Reiss, J

Trimmer, M

Woodward, G

Global Change Biology

PubMed

Biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly worldwide, yet it is uncertain whether few or many species are required to sustain ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change. The importance of biodiversity might be enhanced when multiple ecosystem processes (termed multifunctionality) and environmental contexts are considered, yet no studies have quantified this explicitly to date. We measured five key processes and their combined multifunctionality at three temperatures (5, 10 and 15 degrees C) in freshwater aquaria containing different animal assemblages (1-4 benthic macroinvertebrate species). For single processes, biodiversity effects were weak and were best predicted by additive-based models, i.e. polyculture performances represented the sum of their monoculture parts. There were, however, significant effects of biodiversity on multifunctionality at the low and the high (but not the intermediate) temperature. Variation in the contribution of species to processes across temperatures meant that greater biodiversity was required to sustain multifunctionality across different temperatures than was the case for single processes. This suggests that previous studies might have underestimated the importance of biodiversity in sustaining ecosystem functioning in a changing environment

Perkins, D. M.

Bailey, R. A.

Dossena, M.

Gamfeldt, Lars,

Reiss, J.

Trimmer, M.

Woodward, G.

Swepub

Higher biodiversity is required to sustain multiple ecosystem processes across temperature regimes

Biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly worldwide, yet it is uncertain whether few or many species are required to sustain ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change. The importance of biodiversity might be enhanced when multiple ecosystem processes (termed multifunctionality) and environmental contexts are considered, yet no studies have quantified this explicitly to date. We measured five key processes and their combined multifunctionality at three temperatures (5, 10 and 15 °C) in freshwater aquaria containing different animal assemblages (1-4 benthic macroinvertebrate species). For single processes, biodiversity effects were weak and were best predicted by additive-based models, i.e. polyculture performances represented the sum of their monoculture parts. There were, however, significant effects of biodiversity on multifunctionality at the low and the high (but not the intermediate) temperature. Variation in the contribution of species to processes across temperatures meant that greater biodiversity was required to sustain multifunctionality across different temperatures than was the case for single processes. This suggests that previous studies might have underestimated the importance of biodiversity in sustaining ecosystem functioning in a changing environment

Perkins, D.M.

Bailey, R.A.

Gamfeldt, L.

University of St Andrews Research Portal

Spiral - Imperial College Digital Repository

University of St. Andrews - Pure

The authors thank the Natural Environment Research Council for financial support awarded to G. W. (Grant reference: NE/D013305/1) that funded D. M. P.'s research. Accepted 11 July 2014.Biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly worldwide, yet it is uncertain whether few or many species are required to sustain ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change. The importance of biodiversity might be enhanced when multiple ecosystem processes (termed multifunctionality) and environmental contexts are considered, yet no studies have quantified this explicitly to date. We measured five key processes and their combined multifunctionality at three temperatures (5, 10 and 15 °C) in freshwater aquaria containing different animal assemblages (1-4 benthic macroinvertebrate species). For single processes, biodiversity effects were weak and were best predicted by additive-based models, i.e. polyculture performances represented the sum of their monoculture parts. There were, however, significant effects of biodiversity on multifunctionality at the low and the high (but not the intermediate) temperature. Variation in the contribution of species to processes across temperatures meant that greater biodiversity was required to sustain multifunctionality across different temperatures than was the case for single processes. This suggests that previous studies might have underestimated the importance of biodiversity in sustaining ecosystem functioning in a changing environment.Peer reviewe

St Andrews Research Repository

English

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Daniel M. Perkins

R. A. Bailey

Matteo Dossena

Lars Gamfeldt

Julia Reiss

Mark Trimmer

Guy Woodward

Crossref

Biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly worldwide, yet it is uncertain whether few or many species are required to sustain ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change. The importance of biodiversity might be enhanced when multiple ecosystem 

Perkins, Daniel

Dossena, Matteo

Gamfeldt, Lars

Reiss, Julia

Trimmer, Mark

Woodward, Guy

Roehampton University Research Repository

https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/11641/Trimmer%20Higher%20biodiversity%20is%20required%202014%20Published.pdf?sequence=1

Higher biodiversity is required to sustain multiple ecosystem processes across temperature regimes

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