It is generally assumed that high biodiversity is key to sustaining critical ecosystem services, including prey suppression by natural predator guilds. Prey suppression is driven by complex interactions between members of predator and prey communities, as well as their shared environment. Because of this, empirical studies have found both positive and negative effects of high predator diversity on prey suppression. However, we lack an understanding of when these different prey suppression outcomes will occur. In this work, we use a mechanistic, trait‐based model to unravel how intraguild interactions, species body mass, predator foraging area, and ambient temperature can combine to produce different levels of prey suppression. Surprisingly, we find that prey suppression is only improved by high biodiversity under a limited set of conditions. The most important factor in determining whether diversity improves prey suppression is the amount of overlap between predators' foraging areas. The degree of overlap in foraging areas shapes species interactions, and as the overlap between species increases, we see decreasing benefits from species‐rich communities. In contrast, diversity in body mass only improves prey suppression when there is significant variation in temperature.

中文翻译：

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寻求了解影响捕食者社区多样性对捕食者的影响的因素

人们普遍认为，高生物多样性是维持关键生态系统服务的关键，包括自然捕食者协会对猎物的压制。捕食者的压制是由捕食者与猎物社区成员之间以及它们共享的环境之间复杂的相互作用所驱动的。因此，实证研究发现，高捕食者多样性对猎物抑制有正反作用。但是，我们对何时会出现这些不同的猎物抑制结果缺乏了解。在这项工作中，我们使用基于特征的机械模型来揭示行会内部的相互作用，物种体重，捕食者觅食面积和环境温度如何结合以产生不同水平的猎物抑制。令人惊讶的是，我们发现只有在有限的条件下，高生物多样性才能改善对猎物的抑制。决定多样性是否能改善捕食抑制的最重要因素是掠食者觅食区之间的重叠量。觅食区的重叠程度决定了物种之间的相互作用，并且随着物种之间重叠的增加，我们发现物种丰富的社区的利益在减少。相反，体重的多样性仅在温度发生明显变化时才改善对猎物的抑制。