Biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships in evolved spatially structured communities

A central question in ecology is the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF). A wealth of experimental studies suggest that biodiversity is positively related to important ecosystem functions.

Yet, these studies have typically investigated effects of randomly assembled and artificially maintained biodiversity on local ecosystem functioning.

The resulting patterns therefore need not hold in comparison across sites that differ in environmental conditions and evolutionary history. Observational studies do, in fact, frequently find a unimodal relationship.

Reconciling these differences requires the development of a synthetic theory that explains how biodiversity is generated across spatial scales, and from which BEF relationships arise as an emergent property.Here, we propose to carry out the first theoretical study of BEF relationships in communities that have evolved on heterogeneous landscapes, ranging from habitat patches to continents.

Our study will elucidate how environmental factors and evolutionary constraints shape biodiversity, and how these relate to ecosystem functioning across spatial scales.

The work builds on achievements in a previous VR-funded project (2015-03917 to ÅB) which puts us in a unique position to simulate evolutionary community assembly in heterogeneous space.

We believe that our anticipated advances could become instrumental in the development of a much-needed synthetic theory of BEF relationships.