Projects per year
Abstract
There has been considerable focus on the impacts of environmental change on ecosystem function arising from changes in species richness. However, environmental change may affect ecosystem function without affecting richness, most notably by affecting population densities and community composition. Using a theoretical model, we find that, despite invariant richness, (1) small environmental effects may already lead to a collapse of function; (2) competitive strength may be a less important determinant of ecosystem function change than the selectivity of the environmental change driver and (3) effects on ecosystem function increase when effects on composition are larger. We also present a complementary statistical analysis of 13 data sets of phytoplankton and periphyton communities exposed to chemical stressors and show that effects on primary production under invariant richness ranged from −75% to +10%. We conclude that environmental protection goals relying on measures of richness could underestimate ecological impacts of environmental change.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1315-1324 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Ecology Letters |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 17 Sept 2017 |
Keywords
- Algae
- biodiversity
- coexistence
- community ecology
- modelling
- primary production
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Shifts of community composition and population density substantially affect ecosystem function despite invariant richness'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 3 Finished
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Coexistence, Stress, et le fonctionnement des écosystèmes Aquatiques
1/10/16 → 30/09/20
Project: Research
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Phytoplankton diversity and ecosystem functioning along gradients of grazing and toxicity
De Laender, F. & KULKARNI, D.
1/07/15 → 1/07/16
Project: Research
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sEcoToxDiv: Workshop funded by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) to organize a workshop on “Ecotoxicology for B-EF research: designing novel multi-trophic B-EF experiments
De Laender, F. & Van den Brink, P. J.
15/12/14 → 1/05/15
Project: Research
Equipment
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High Performance Computing Technology Platform
Benoît Champagne (Manager)
Technological Platform High Performance ComputingFacility/equipment: Technological Platform
Activities
- 1 Participation in conference
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ECOSUMMIT 2016
Frédérik De Laender (Invited Speaker)
2016 → …Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference