Ecology, December 1st, 1998
We tested whether standing autotrophic (unicellular algal) biomass is sensitive to variation in initial consumer (nondecomposer, heterotrophic protistan) diversity in experimental microbial microcosms. Our results showed a strong, negative relationship between autotrophic biomass and consumer species richness. Additional microcosm experiments showed that this relationship was due largely to the direct and indirect trophic effects of consumers on autotrophs and decomposers. Collectively, these experiments suggest that standing autotrophic biomass is a function of community composition, trophic ...
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