Community Ecology
Volume/Issue:
Volume 11: Issue 1
High community dissimilarity at low productivity causes the productivity-richness relation to vary with observational scale
Authors:
W. Li

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and
M. Stevens Miami University Department of Botany 316 Pearson Hall Oxford Ohio 45056 USA

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Pages:
27–34
Online Publication Date:
20 Apr 2010
Publication Date:
01 Jun 2010
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/comec.11.2010.1.5
Keywords:
Dissimilarity; Ecosystem size; Microcosms; Observational scale; Productivity-richness relation
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It is widely reported that the productivity-richness relation (PRR) is highly variable, and several field studies suggest that the PRR varies with observational scale. Here we provide the first experimental study to test whether the PRR is scale-dependent when all replicate ecosystems have similar initial conditions. We also test the relation between productivity and compositional dissimilarity, and whether the PRR varies with ecosystem size. Moderately complex replicated microcosms were assembled consisting of a range of protozoa, algae, and a diverse bacterial flora. We found that the PRR of protozoan and algal communities varied with observational scale, but was unrelated to ecosystem size. Specifically, protozoan and algal richness increased monotonically with productivity at the local scale, but became flattened at the regional scale. This varying PRR at different scales occurred because dissimilarity among replicates decreased with productivity. Thus, in this model system, our experimental approach found a different form of scale dependence than previous field research. We speculate that this difference results from different processes governing extinctions at low levels of productivity.

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Cover Community Ecology
Community Ecology An Interdisciplinary Journal Reporting Progress in Community and Population Studies
Print ISSN:
1585-8553
Online ISSN:
1588-2756

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Community Ecology
Language English
Size A4
Year of
Foundation		 2000
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 3
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
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Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 1585-8553 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2756 (Online)

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