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Related Experiment Video

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Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Disturbance and diversity at two spatial scales.

Romana Limberger¹, Stephen A Wickham

¹Department of Organismic Biology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria. romana.limberger@stud.sbg.ac.at

|October 6, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Both local and regional disturbances negatively impact aquatic protist diversity. While local disturbances cause species loss, regional disturbances reduce community evenness, affecting diversity at multiple scales.

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Environmental Science
Microbiology

Background:

The spatial scale of ecological disturbances can influence their impact on biodiversity.
Understanding whether local versus regional disturbances affect diversity differently is crucial for ecological theory.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare the effects of local and regional disturbances on the disturbance-diversity relationship in aquatic protist metacommunities.
To investigate how different disturbance scales influence species richness, evenness, and trait-based responses.

Main Methods:

A microcosm experiment using aquatic protist metacommunities.
Comparison of local disturbances (community destruction with reimmigration) and regional disturbances (whole metacommunity impact with partial intactness).
Analysis of Shannon diversity, species richness, evenness, and key traits like growth rate and competitive ability.

Main Results:

Both local and regional disturbances exhibited a negative relationship between disturbance intensity and Shannon diversity.
Strong local disturbance led to species loss, while strong regional disturbance reduced community evenness.
Growth rate was key for survival after local disturbance; dominance was key after regional disturbance.
The disturbance-diversity pattern was consistent across local and regional diversity scales.

Conclusions:

Spatial scale of disturbance does not alter the negative disturbance-diversity relationship, though mechanisms differ.
Local disturbances create patch mosaics that temporarily increase beta diversity but do not elevate regional diversity.
Community structure and trait-based responses are influenced by the scale of disturbance.