Phytoplankton biodiversity is more important for ecosystem functioning in highly variable thermal environments.

ABSTRACT: The 21st century has seen an acceleration of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss, with both stressors deemed to affect ecosystem functioning. However, we know little about the interactive effects of both stressors and in particular about the interaction of increased climatic variability and biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning. This should be remedied because larger climatic variability is one of the main features of climate change. Here, we demonstrated that temperature fluctuations led to changes in the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning. We used microcosm communities of different phytoplankton species richness and exposed them to a constant, mild, and severe temperature-fluctuating environment. Wider temperature fluctuations led to steeper biodiver

SUBMITTER: Bestion E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8536371 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature