Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning

Bradley J. Cardinale ()
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Bradley J. Cardinale: University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources & Environment

Nature, 2011, vol. 472, issue 7341, 86-89

Abstract: Diverse ecosystems fill a niche Studies in recent years have suggested that the conservation of biodiversity improves the ability of an ecosystem to retain nutrients and remain productive. These papers have proved controversial, in part because of a lack of direct evidence for a mechanism to explain the phenomenon. Now, in experiments involving manipulation of the number of algal species in model stream systems, Bradley Cardinale provides one such mechanism. Uptake of nitrogen nutrients increased linearly with species richness in response to changes in flow habitats and disturbance regimes. But when niche structure was experimentally removed, the relationship disappeared. This suggests that habitats with more species take greater advantage of the niche opportunities in an environment than do less-species-rich habitats, allowing the more diverse systems to capture a greater fraction of biologically active resources such as nitrogen.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09904

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