Multitrophic functional diversity predicts ecosystem functioning in experimental assemblages of estuarine consumers
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Ecology, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- biodiversity, functional diversity, ecosystem functioning, consumers, grazers, predators, estuaries
- Copyright
- © 2015 Lefcheck et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Multitrophic functional diversity predicts ecosystem functioning in experimental assemblages of estuarine consumers. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e540v3 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.540v3
Abstract
The use of functional traits to explain how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning has attracted intense interest, yet few studies have a priori altered functional diversity, especially in multitrophic communities. Here, we manipulated multivariate functional diversity of estuarine grazers and predators within multiple levels of species richness to test how species richness and functional diversity predicted ecosystem functioning in a multitrophic food web. Community functional diversity was a better predictor than species richness for the majority of ecosystem properties, based on general linear mixed effects models. Combining inferences from 8 traits into a single multivariate index increased prediction accuracy of these models relative to any individual trait. Structural equation modeling revealed that functional diversity of both grazers and predators was important in driving final biomass within trophic levels, with stronger effects observed for predators. We also show that different species drove different ecosystem responses, with evidence for both sampling effects and complementarity. Our study extends experimental investigations of functional trait diversity to a multilevel food web, and demonstrates that functional diversity can be more accurate and effective than species richness in predicting community biomass in a food web context.
Author Comment
This is the final unformatted revision for Ecology.