Ecosystem-level stabilizing effects of biodiversity via nutrient-diversity feedbacks in multitrophic systems

Statistical averaging and asynchronous population dynamics as portfolio mechanisms are considered as the most important processes with which biodiversity contributes to ecosystem stability. However, portfolio theories usually regard biodiversity as a fixed property, but overlook the dynamics of biodiversity altered by other ecosystem components. Here, we proposed a new mechanistic food chain model with nutrient-diversity feedback to investigate how dynamics of phytoplankton species diversity determines ecosystem stability. Our model focuses on nutrient, community biomass of phytoplankton and zooplankton, and phytoplankton species richness. The model assumes diversity effects of phytoplankton on trophic interaction strength along plankton food chain: phytoplankton diversity influences nutrient uptake by phytoplankton and zooplankton grazing on phytoplankton, which subsequently affects nutrient level and community biomass of phytoplankton and zooplankton. The nutrient level in turn affects phytoplankton diversity. These processes collectively form feedbacks between phytoplankton diversity and dynamics of plankton and nutrient. More importantly, nutrient-diversity feedback introduced additional temporal variabilities in community biomass, which apparently implies a destabilizing effect of phytoplankton diversity on ecosystem. However, the variabilities made ecosystems more robust against extinction of plankton because increasing phytoplankton diversity facilitates resource consumptions when consumers prone to extinct; while, reducing diversity weakens destabilizing dynamics caused by over-growth. Our results suggest the presence of a novel stabilizing effect of biodiversity acting through nutrient-diversity feedback, being independent of portfolio mechanisms.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  arXiv: Populations and Evolution

• Publication date

  2019-09-12

• Fields of study

  Biology, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  arXiv 1909.05577
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

  2019influential reference
• Prey size diversity hinders biomass trophic transfer and predator size diversity promotes it in planktonic communities

  2016cited by this paper
• Phytoplankton functional group dynamics explain species abundance distribution in a directionally changing environment

  2014influential reference
• Predicting ecosystem stability from community composition and biodiversity.

  2013cited by this paper
• Nutrient enrichment, biodiversity loss, and consequent declines in ecosystem productivity

  2013cited by this paper
• Understanding diversity–stability relationships: towards a unified model of portfolio effects

  2012influential reference
• Impacts of Biodiversity Loss Escalate Through Time as Redundancy Fades

  2012influential reference
• Chaos in a Three Species Food Chain

  2011cited by this paper
• Current trends in the evolutionary ecology of plant defence

  2011cited by this paper
• Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning

  2011cited by this paper
• Functional diversity of microbial decomposers facilitates plant coexistence in a plant–microbe–soil feedback model

  2010cited by this paper
• Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases

  2010cited by this paper
• A new graphical model for untangling complex relationships among environment, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning

  2009influential reference
• Competition for Light Causes Plant Biodiversity Loss After Eutrophication

  2009cited by this paper
• Species Synchrony and Its Drivers: Neutral and Nonneutral Community Dynamics in Fluctuating Environments

  2008cited by this paper
• Stability and Diversity of Ecosystems

  2007cited by this paper
• The functional role of biodiversity in ecosystems: incorporating trophic complexity.

  2007influential reference
• Consumer effects decline with prey diversity

  2004cited by this paper
• Biodiversity as spatial insurance in heterogeneous landscapes

  2003cited by this paper
• Food-web constraints on biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships

  2003cited by this paper
• Response diversity, ecosystem change, and resilience

  2003cited by this paper
• The species richness–productivity controversy

  2002influential reference
• Consumer versus resource control of species diversity and ecosystem functioning

  2002cited by this paper
• NPZ Models of Plankton Dynamics: Their Construction, Coupling to Physics, and Application

  2002influential reference
• LIMITING RESOURCES AND THE REGULATION OF DIVERSITY IN PHYTOPLANKTON COMMUNITIES

  2001cited by this paper
• The diversity–stability debate

  2000cited by this paper
• Diversity peaks at intermediate productivity in a laboratory microcosm

  2000cited by this paper
• Biodiversity, Stability, and Productivity in Competitive Communities

  2000cited by this paper
• Consequences of changing biodiversity

  2000cited by this paper
• Biodiversity and ecosystem productivity in a fluctuating environment: the insurance hypothesis.

  1999cited by this paper
• Plant diversity and productivity experiments in european grasslands

  1999cited by this paper
• Diversity‐Stability Relationships: Statistical Inevitability or Ecological Consequence?

  1998influential reference
• Weak trophic interactions and the balance of nature

  1998cited by this paper
• The Statistical Inevitability of Stability‐Diversity Relationships in Community Ecology

  1998influential reference
• Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: a mechanistic model.

  1998cited by this paper
• Species Diversity in Space and Time.

  1996cited by this paper
• Chaos in a Three-Species Food Chain

  1991cited by this paper
• On the stabilizing effect of predators and competitors on ecological communities

  1989cited by this paper
• Oceanic phytoplankton, atmospheric sulphur, cloud albedo and climate

  1987cited by this paper
• Resource competition and community structure.

  1983cited by this paper
• A Mathematical Theory for Single-Nutrient Competition in Continuous Cultures of Micro-Organisms

  1977cited by this paper
• The Theory of Island Biogeography

  1969influential reference
• Consumer versus resource control of species diversity and ecosystem functioning

  year unknowncited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.