Predator richness increases the effect of prey diversity on prey yield

Abstract

Positive biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships are generally attributed to two mechanisms: complementarity and selection. These mechanisms have been primarily examined using plant communities, whereas bacterial communities remain largely unexplored. Moreover, it remains uncertain how predation by single or multiple predators affects these mechanisms. Here using 465 bacterial microcosms, we show that multiple predation by protists results in positive bacterial diversity effects on bacterial yields (colony-forming units) possibly due to an increased complementarity and evenness among bacterial species. By mathematically partitioning the biodiversity effects, we demonstrate that competitive interactions in diverse communities are reduced and the growth of subdominant species is enhanced. We envisage that, including diversity gradients at other trophic levels, in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research is a key to understanding and managing ecosystem processes. Such level of manipulation can be achieved best in microbial model systems, which are powerful tools for fundamental hypothesis-driven experiments and the investigation of general ecological theories.