The space in which organisms live determines health and physicality, shaping the way in which they interact with their peers. Space, therefore, is critically important for species diversity and the function performed by individuals within mixed communities. The biotic and abiotic factors defined by the space that organisms occupy are ecologically significant and the difficulty in quantifying space-defined parameters within complex systems limits the study of ecological processes. Here, we overcome this problem using a tractable system whereby spatial heterogeneity in interacting fungal wood decay communities demonstrates that scale and patchiness of territory directly influence coexistence dynamics. Spatial arrangement in 2- and 3-dimensions resulted in measurable metabolic differences that provide evidence of a clear biological response to changing landscape architecture. This is of vital importance to microbial systems in all ecosystems globally, as our results demonstrate that community function is driven by the effects of spatial dynamics.

生物体生存的空间决定了它们的健康和身体状况，决定了它们与同伴互动的方式。因此，空间对于物种多样性和混合群落中个体的功能至关重要。由生物体占据的空间定义的生物和非生物因素具有生态意义，并且在复杂系统内量化空间定义的参数的困难限制了生态过程的研究。在这里，我们使用一个易于处理的系统克服了这个问题，其中相互作用的真菌木材腐烂群落的空间异质性表明，领土的规模和斑块性直接影响共存动态。二维和三维的空间排列导致了可测量的代谢差异，这提供了对不断变化的景观建筑的明确生物反应的证据。这对于全球所有生态系统中的微生物系统至关重要，因为我们的结果表明群落功能是由空间动态的影响驱动的。