The relative importance of richness and BCC for DOC degradation

• The importance of biodiversity has been of primary interest for ecologist the last 20 years, giving rise to biodiversity ecosystem function (BEF) studies. Within the traditional field of ecology reoccurring patterns have emerged but within microbial ecology the importance of species richness for functioning is still poorly understood with few consistent patterns. In this study we examined the effect of species richness for dissolved organic matter degradation in lakes. This was examined within a smaller span of species richness compared to what is typically in microbial BEF experiments. Bacterial communities of reduced species richness were exposed to a range of DOC environments to test if reduced richness changed the functioning of communities and if the effect was similar among DOC environments. This was conducted in a full factorial design of 3 levels, with 6 dilutions, 5 media and 3 inocula resulting in 90 treatments. Overall, richness and community composition appeared to have effects on DOC degradation, but these effects were minor compared to the variation caused by the different DOC sources. Further, the importance of species richness varied among media and, thus, the chemical complexity of the environment influenced the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. 

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Mikrobiologi

Microbiology

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)