4.8 Article

The hidden role of multi-trophic interactions in driving diversity-productivity relationships

Journal

ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 25, Issue 2, Pages 405-415

Publisher

WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.13935

Keywords

biodiversity-ecosystem functioning; complex food-webs; primary production; resource-use complementarity; selection; trophic interaction; vertical diversity

Categories

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [31988102]
  2. TULIP Laboratory of Excellence [ANR-10-LABX-41]
  3. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG-FZT 118, GRK 2324/1-2018, 319936945, 202548816]

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Resource-use complementarity and multi-trophic interactions interactively create diverse communities of complementary producer species, increasing their coexistence and realized complementarity. Animal-rich ecosystems with multi-trophic interactions facilitate producer coexistence by preventing competitive exclusion and increasing realized complementarity. The interdependence of food-webs and producer complementarity highlights the importance of adopting a multi-trophic perspective in understanding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships.
Resource-use complementarity of producer species is often invoked to explain the generally positive diversity-productivity relationships. Additionally, multi-trophic interactions that link processes across trophic levels have received increasing attention as a possible key driver. Given that both are integral to natural ecosystems, their interactive effect should be evident but has remained hidden. We address this issue by analysing diversity-productivity relationships in a simulation experiment of producer communities nested within complex food-webs, manipulating resource-use complementarity and multi-trophic animal richness. We show that these two mechanisms interactively create diverse communities of complementary producer species. This shapes diversity-productivity relationships such that their joint contribution generally exceeds their individual effects. Specifically, multi-trophic interactions in animal-rich ecosystems facilitate producer coexistence by preventing competitive exclusion despite overlaps in resource-use, which increases the realised complementarity. The interdependence of food-webs and producer complementarity in creating biodiversity-productivity relationships highlights the importance to adopt a multi-trophic perspective on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships.

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