Non-trophic interactions strengthen the diversity-functioning relationship in an ecological bioenergetic network model

PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Aug 29;15(8):e1007269. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007269. eCollection 2019 Aug.

Abstract

Ecological communities are undeniably diverse, both in terms of the species that compose them as well as the type of interactions that link species to each other. Despite this long recognition of the coexistence of multiple interaction types in nature, little is known about the consequences of this diversity for community functioning. In the ongoing context of global change and increasing species extinction rates, it seems crucial to improve our understanding of the drivers of the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem functioning. Here, using a multispecies dynamical model of ecological communities including various interaction types (e.g. competition for space, predator interference, recruitment facilitation in addition to feeding), we studied the role of the presence and the intensity of these interactions for species diversity, community functioning (biomass and production) and the relationship between diversity and functioning.Taken jointly, the diverse interactions have significant effects on species diversity, whose amplitude and sign depend on the type of interactions involved and their relative abundance. They however consistently increase the slope of the relationship between diversity and functioning, suggesting that species losses might have stronger effects on community functioning than expected when ignoring the diversity of interaction types and focusing on feeding interactions only.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biodiversity*
  • Biomass
  • Biota
  • Computational Biology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Ecosystem*
  • Energy Metabolism
  • Food Chain
  • Models, Biological*
  • Predatory Behavior

Grants and funding

This work was performed using the computing facilities of the CC LBBE/PRABI. Funding was provided by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French National Research Agency (ANR) grant ANR-18-CE02-0010 EcoNet (V.M.,S.K.). R.R.-J. acknowledges support from grant CONICYT/FONDECYT 1190173. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.