Diversity decoupled from ecosystem function and resilience during mass extinction recovery

Sarah A. Alvarez (), Samantha J. Gibbs (), Paul R. Bown, Hojung Kim, Rosie M. Sheward and Andy Ridgwell
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Sarah A. Alvarez: University of Bristol
Samantha J. Gibbs: University of Southampton
Paul R. Bown: University College London
Hojung Kim: University College London
Rosie M. Sheward: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Andy Ridgwell: University of California at Riverside

Nature, 2019, vol. 574, issue 7777, 242-245

Abstract: Abstract The Chicxulub bolide impact 66 million years ago drove the near-instantaneous collapse of ocean ecosystems. The devastating loss of diversity at the base of ocean food webs probably triggered cascading extinctions across all trophic levels1–3 and caused severe disruption of the biogeochemical functions of the ocean, and especially disrupted the cycling of carbon between the surface and deep sea4,5. The absence of sufficiently detailed biotic data that span the post-extinction interval has limited our understanding of how ecosystem resilience and biochemical function was restored; estimates6–8 of ecosystem ‘recovery’ vary from less than 100 years to 10 million years. Here, using a 13-million-year-long nannoplankton time series, we show that post-extinction communities exhibited 1.8 million years of exceptional volatility before a more stable equilibrium-state community emerged that displayed hallmarks of resilience. The transition to this new equilibrium-state community with a broader spectrum of cell sizes coincides with indicators of carbon-cycle restoration and a fully functioning biological pump9. These findings suggest a fundamental link between ecosystem recovery and biogeochemical cycling over timescales that are longer than those suggested by proxies of export production7,8, but far shorter than the return of taxonomic richness6. The fact that species richness remained low as both community stability and biological pump efficiency re-emerged suggests that ecological functions rather than the number of species are more important to community resilience and biochemical functions.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1590-8

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