Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 20, Issue 10, Pages 1315-1324Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12828
Keywords
Algae; biodiversity; coexistence; community ecology; modelling; primary production
Categories
Funding
- FRS-FNRS [2.4520.11]
- Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) [B/12958/01]
- National Science Foundation [EF-1241889]
- National Institutes of Health [R01GM109499, R01TW010286]
- US Department of Agriculture [NRI 2006-01370, 2009-35102-0543]
- US Environmental Protection Agency [CAREER 83518801]
- grants of the University of Namur [FSR Impulsionnel 48454E1]
- Fund for Scientific Research, FNRS [PDR T.0048.16]
- Discovery Grant program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF grant) [CRSII2_147654]
- Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig [DFG FZT 118]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1241889] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [CRSII2_147654] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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There has been considerable focus on the impacts of environmental change on ecosystem function arising from changes in species richness. However, environmental change may affect ecosystem function without affecting richness, most notably by affecting population densities and community composition. Using a theoretical model, we find that, despite invariant richness, (1) small environmental effects may already lead to a collapse of function; (2) competitive strength may be a less important determinant of ecosystem function change than the selectivity of the environmental change driver and (3) effects on ecosystem function increase when effects on composition are larger. We also present a complementary statistical analysis of 13 data sets of phytoplankton and periphyton communities exposed to chemical stressors and show that effects on primary production under invariant richness ranged from -75% to +10%. We conclude that environmental protection goals relying on measures of richness could underestimate ecological impacts of environmental change.
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