Climate impacts on the multidiversity–multifunctionality relationship change with habitat type

Abstract

Extreme climatic events are expected to increase in frequency in the coming decades. However, it is largely unknown how these events will mediate the influence of multidiversity on ecosystem multifunctionality in different habitats. Here, we conducted a manipulative field experiment to evaluate the impact of rainfall amount and frequency variation on freshwater multidiversity (macrofauna, microfauna, bacteria and algae) and ecosystem multifunctionality in contrasting environments. For this, we used natural microcosms (tank bromeliads) as model systems in forest environments that differed in structural environmental heterogeneity. Rainfall amount affected the bromeliad’s multifunctionality, but the outcome depended on the type of environment, the biodiversity component and the dimension of the ecosystem multifunctionality (i.e. average, productivity or decomposition). Ecosystem functioning in the habitat with lower environmental heterogeneity was more sensitive to rainfall amount. Conversely, in the habitat with higher environmental heterogeneity, ecosystem functioning was more sensitive to biodiversity components. Our study brings new evidence of how climate change affects different dimensions of ecosystem functioning as mediated by multidiversity and its dependence on habitat properties. Our results improve the understanding of how global change can impact the multiple dimensions of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in different habitat types.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Life in natural microcosms’.