Disturbance Increases Microbial Community Diversity and Production in Marine Sediments.

ABSTRACT: Disturbance strongly impacts patterns of community diversity, yet the shape of the diversity-disturbance relationship remains a matter of debate. The topic has been of interest in theoretical ecology for decades as it has practical implications for the understanding of ecosystem services in nature. One of these processes is the remineralization of organic matter by microorganisms in coastal marine sediments, which are periodically impacted by disturbances across the sediment-water interface. Here we set up an experiment to test the hypothesis that disturbance impacts microbial diversity and function during the anaerobic degradation of organic matter in coastal sediments. We show that during the first 3 weeks of the experiment, disturbance increased both microbial production, derived from t

SUBMITTER: Galand PE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5133735 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature