Multiple plant diversity components drive consumer communities across ecosystems
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2019
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
Humans modify ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide, with negative consequences for ecosystem functioning. Promoting plant diversity is increasingly suggested as a mitigation strategy. However, our mechanistic understanding of how plant diversity affects the diversity of heterotrophic consumer communities remains limited. Here, we disentangle the relative importance of key components of plant diversity as drivers of herbivore, predator, and parasitoid species richness in experimental forests and grasslands. We find that plant species richness effects on consumer species richness are consistently positive and mediated by elevated structural and functional diversity of the plant communities. The importance of these diversity components differs across trophic levels and ecosystems, cautioning against ignoring the fundamental ecological complexity of biodiversity effects. Importantly, plant diversity effects on higher trophic-level species richness are in many cases mediated by modifications of consumer abundances. In light of recently reported drastic declines in insect abundances, our study identifies important pathways connecting plant diversity and consumer diversity across ecosystems.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
10
Pages / Article No.
1460
Publisher
Nature
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Organisational unit
03648 - Buchmann, Nina / Buchmann, Nina