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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 10, 2026

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Disturbance and diversity in experimental microcosms.

A Buckling¹, R Kassen, G Bell

¹Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK. angus.buckling@plant-sciences.ox.ac.uk

|January 5, 2001

Summary

The intermediate disturbance hypothesis suggests maximum species diversity occurs at intermediate disturbance frequencies. This study shows that spatial heterogeneity, not disturbance alone, drives this diversity pattern in bacterial populations.

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Microbial Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Background:

Disturbances significantly impact species diversity across various scales.
The intermediate disturbance hypothesis posits maximum diversity at intermediate disturbance frequencies, supported by prior studies.
Coexistence under intermediate disturbance is theorized to involve trade-offs and metapopulation dynamics, or spatial niches under global disturbances.

Purpose of the Study:

To test the role of spatial niches and disturbance frequency on species diversity.
To investigate the mechanisms generating unimodal diversity-disturbance relationships.
To examine how environmental heterogeneity modulates the effect of disturbance on diversity.

Main Methods:

Experiments using isogenic and diverse populations of Pseudomonas fluorescens.
Controlled environments with varying degrees of spatial heterogeneity (homogeneous vs. heterogeneous).
Manipulation of disturbance frequency to observe effects on population diversity.

Main Results:

A unimodal relationship between diversity and disturbance frequency was observed exclusively in heterogeneous environments.
This pattern was consistent across both isogenic and diverse bacterial populations.
Competition among niche-specialist genotypes was identified as the mechanism maintaining diversity at intermediate disturbance levels.

Conclusions:

Spatial heterogeneity is a critical factor in generating the intermediate disturbance hypothesis pattern.
Disturbance frequency modulates the impact of spatial heterogeneity on biological diversity.
Niche specialization and competition are key drivers of diversity maintenance in disturbed, heterogeneous environments.