Abstract
The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is an important theme in environmental sciences. We propose a new index for configuration of the biomass pyramid in an ecosystem, named integrated trophic position (iTP). The iTP is defined as a sum of trophic positions (i.e. the average number of steps involved in biomass transfer) of all the animals in a food web integrated by their individual biomass. The observed iTP for stream macroinvertebrates ranged from 2.39 to 2.79 and was negatively correlated with the species density and the Shannon-Wiener diversity index of the local community. The results indicate a lower efficiency of biomass transfer in more diverse communities, which may be explained by the variance in edibility hypothesis and/or the trophic omnivory hypothesis. We found a negative effect of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2130 |
Journal | Scientific reports |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 Dec 1 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General