Diversity–disturbance relationships: frequency and intensity interact

Hall, Alex R.; Miller, Adam D.; Leggett, Helen C.; Roxburgh, Stephen H.; Buckling, Angus; Shea, Katriona

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0282

Cited by 71 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Prior work using a single-strain system ( Pseudomonas fluorescens ) showed that coexistence of colony morphotypes peaked at intermediate levels of disturbance and productivity (33–35), but it is unclear whether these results translate to more complex communities. Recent laboratory work has shown that multispecies microbial community responses to disturbance depend not only on intensity but also on the frequency of disturbance application (34, 36), suggesting that a simple universal relationship between diversity and disturbance may not exist. We expanded on this prior work and developed an experimental system comprised of a complex bacterial community enriched from Lake Ontario, wherein we could precisely define the dimensions of disturbance (e.g., disturbance type, range, intensity, and frequency) and quantitatively sample community diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance Regimes Predictably Alter Diversity in an Ecologically Complex Bacterial System

Gibbons

Scholz

Hutchison

et al. 2016

mBio

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Diversity is often associated with the functional stability of ecological communities from microbes to macroorganisms. Understanding how diversity responds to environmental perturbations and the consequences of this relationship for ecosystem function are thus central challenges in microbial ecology. Unimodal diversity-disturbance relationships, in which maximum diversity occurs at intermediate levels of disturbance, have been predicted for ecosystems where life history tradeoffs separate organisms along a disturbance gradient. However, empirical support for such peaked relationships in macrosystems is mixed, and few studies have explored these relationships in microbial systems. Here we use complex microbial microcosm communities to systematically determine diversity-disturbance relationships over a range of disturbance regimes. We observed a reproducible switch between community states, which gave rise to transient diversity maxima when community states were forced to mix. Communities showed reduced compositional stability when diversity was highest. To further explore these dynamics, we formulated a simple model that reveals specific regimes under which diversity maxima are stable. Together, our results show how both unimodal and non-unimodal diversity-disturbance relationships can be observed as a system switches between two distinct microbial community states; this process likely occurs across a wide range of spatially and temporally heterogeneous microbial ecosystems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance Regimes Predictably Alter Diversity in an Ecologically Complex Bacterial System

Gibbons

Scholz

Hutchison

et al. 2016

mBio

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“…The IDH is supported by studies of a variety of species and ecosystems (Flöder and Sommer, 1999;Molino and Sabatier, 2001;Roxburgh et al, 2004;Yuan et al, 2016), including a temperate grassland ecosystem (Yuan et al, 2016). However, numerous empirical studies have described a variety of diversitydisturbance relationships (MacKey and Currie, 2001;Cadotte, 2007;Randall Hughes et al, 2007;Hall et al, 2012). Some researchers believe that the IDH should be abandoned on empirical and theoretical grounds (Randall Hughes et al, 2007;Fox, 2013), whereas other researchers believe the data support the extension and refinement of the IDH (Randall Hughes et al, 2007) and suggest that the IDH forms the basis for the competition-colonization trade-off theory (Sheil and Burslem, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

Population Dynamics and Transcriptomic Responses of Chorthippus albonemus (Orthoptera: Acrididae) to Herbivore Grazing Intensity

Qin

Huang

et al. 2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Livestock grazing can trigger outbreaks of insect pests in steppe ecosystems of Inner Mongolia in China. However, the physiological responses of the grasshopper Chorthippus albonemus to grazing are not well-understood. Here we investigated the effects of sheep grazing on the population dynamics and transcriptomic response of C. albonemus. We collected the insects three times (about 20 days apart) in 1.33-ha plots in which there were no grazing, light grazing, moderate grazing, heavy grazing, or overgrazing. Our results showed that continuous grazing significantly decreased plant biomass and influenced plant succession. Total insect species diversity significantly declined along the grazing intensity gradient and over time. Results of the first two collections of C. albonemus indicated that moderate grazing significantly increased the abundance of C. albonemus. However, abundance was significantly decreased in plots that were overgrazed, possibly because of food stress and environmental pressures. Under moderate grazing, betA and CHDH genes were significantly upregulated in C. albonemus. In response to higher grazing intensity, upregulated genes included those involved in serine-type peptidase activity, anatomical structure development, and sensory organ development; downregulated genes included those involved in the structural constituents of the ribosome and ribosome processes. Genes strongly upregulated in response to heavy grazing pressure included adaptive genes such as those encoding ankyrin repeat domain-containing protein and HSP. These findings improve our understanding of the role of the transcriptome in C. albonemus population response to livestock grazing and may provide useful targets for grasshopper control.

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“…(Danovaro & Fabiano 1995;James et al 2006) and it is plausible that the microbial community was impacted by the cold snap. Microbial diversity can increase following disturbance (Hall et al 2012a), and the community may have been in a period of recovery when we sampled it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem structure in disturbed and restored subtropical seagrass meadows

Bourque¹

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Diversity–disturbance relationships: frequency and intensity interact

Cited by 71 publications

References 23 publications

Disturbance Regimes Predictably Alter Diversity in an Ecologically Complex Bacterial System

Disturbance Regimes Predictably Alter Diversity in an Ecologically Complex Bacterial System

Population Dynamics and Transcriptomic Responses of Chorthippus albonemus (Orthoptera: Acrididae) to Herbivore Grazing Intensity

Ecosystem structure in disturbed and restored subtropical seagrass meadows

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