Consumers control diversity and functioning of a natural marine ecosystem.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Our understanding of the functional consequences of changes in biodiversity has been hampered by several limitations of previous work, including limited attention to trophic interactions, a focus on species richness rather than evenness, and the use of artificially assembled communities.

Methodology and principal findings

In this study, we manipulated the density of an herbivorous snail in natural tide pools and allowed seaweed communities to assemble in an ecologically relevant and non-random manner. Seaweed species evenness and biomass-specific primary productivity (mg O(2) h(-1) g(-1)) were higher in tide pools with snails because snails preferentially consumed an otherwise dominant seaweed species that can reduce biomass-specific productivity rates of algal as

SUBMITTER: Altieri AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2668074 | biostudies-literature | 2009

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature