Foundational biodiversity effects propagate through coastal food webs via multiple pathways

Abstract

Relatively few studies have attempted to resolve the pathways through which the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning cascade from one trophic level to another. Here, we manipulated the richness of habitat-forming seaweeds in a western Atlantic estuary to explore how changes in foundation species diversity affect the structure and functioning of the benthic consumer communities that they support. Structural equation modeling revealed that macroalgal richness enhanced invertebrate abundance, biomass, and diversity, both directly by changing the quality and palatability of the foundational substrate and indirectly by increasing the total biomass of available habitat.Consumer responses were largely driven by a single foundational seaweed, although stronger complementarity among macroalgae was observed for invertebrate richness. These findings with diverse foundational phyla extend earlier inferences from terrestrial grasslands by showing that biodiversity effects can simultaneously propagate through multiple independent pathways to maintain animal foodwebs. Our work also highlights the potential ramifications of human-induced changes in marine ecosystems.

A network prediction model to quantify relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF)

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Loss of biodiversity has an impact on ecosystem functioning worldwide, but we lack an in-depth understanding of how this loss may influence ecosystem functions (EFs), such as primary productivity or soil and water processes, in the long term (Ramus et al, 2022).Many studies investigating the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) have focused on the level at which biodiversity loss is critical to maintain a certain level of EF (Furey & Tilman, 2021;van der Plas, 2019). For example, it has been demonstrated that, in order to maintain EFs such as carbon sequestration or soil functioning to a high level of performance, species decline within an ecosystem must not exceed 20% (Newbold et al, 2016).

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“…Loss of biodiversity has an impact on ecosystem functioning worldwide, but we lack an in-depth understanding of how this loss may influence ecosystem functions (EFs), such as primary productivity or soil and water processes, in the long term (Ramus et al, 2022).…”