Multifunctionality of biocrusts is positively predicted by network topologies consistent with interspecies facilitation.

ABSTRACT: The potential of biodiversity loss to impair the delivery of ecosystem services has motived ecologists to better understand the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Although increasing evidence underlines the collective contribution of different biodiversity components on the simultaneous performance of multiple functions (multifunctionality), we know little about the trade-offs between individual diversity effects and the extent to which they determine multifunctionality differentially. Here, at a subcontinental scale of 62 dryland sites, we show in phototrophic microbiota of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) that, whereas richness alone is unable to guarantee the maxima of multifunctional performance, interspecies facilitation and compositional identity are parti

SUBMITTER: Li H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7318560 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature