Biodiversity Consistently Promotes Ecosystem Multifunctionality Across Multiple Temporal Scales in an Aquatic...

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Microbiology

Background:

• Ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) is crucial for ecosystem health, but its relationship with biodiversity is complex due to environmental drivers.
• The influence of biodiversity and environmental factors on EMF is scale-dependent across different temporal resolutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the scale-dependent effects of microbial biodiversity and environmental drivers on ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in a subtropical freshwater ecosystem.
• To determine the relative importance of biodiversity versus environmental drivers in maintaining EMF across inter-annual, seasonal, and short-term scales.

Main Methods:

• Conducted biweekly sampling over nine years in a subtropical freshwater ecosystem.
• Measured microbial diversity, EMF using 31 carbon utilisation functions, and environmental variables (precipitation, temperature, phosphate).
• Analyzed biodiversity-EMF relationships across inter-annual, seasonal, and short-term temporal scales.

Main Results:

• Biodiversity consistently enhanced EMF across all investigated temporal scales (inter-annual, seasonal, short-term).
• Environmental drivers like precipitation, temperature, and phosphate influenced EMF only at specific scales (short-term, seasonal, and inter-annual, respectively).
• Biodiversity was found to mediate the impacts of environmental drivers on EMF, highlighting its central role.

Conclusions:

• Biodiversity is a critical and consistent driver of ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) across multiple temporal scales.
• Conserving biodiversity is essential for maintaining ecosystem multifunctionality in the face of changing environmental conditions.
• Understanding scale-dependent relationships is key to predicting EMF responses to environmental change.