Relatively few studies have attempted to resolve the pathways through which the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning cascade from one trophic level to another. Here, we manipulated the richness of habitat-forming seaweeds in a western Atlantic estuary to explore how changes in foundation species diversity affect the structure and functioning of the benthic consumer communities that they support. Structural equation modeling revealed that macroalgal richness enhanced invertebrate abundance, biomass, and diversity, both directly by changing the quality and palatability of the foundational substrate and indirectly by increasing the total biomass of available habitat. Consumer responses were largely driven by a single foundational seaweed, although stronger complementarity among macroalgae was observed for invertebrate richness. These findings with diverse foundational phyla extend earlier inferences from terrestrial grasslands by showing that biodiversity effects can simultaneously propagate through multiple independent pathways to maintain animal foodwebs. Our work also highlights the potential ramifications of human-induced changes in marine ecosystems.

中文翻译：

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基本的生物多样性影响通过多种途径通过沿海食物网传播

相对较少的研究试图解决生物多样性对生态系统功能的影响从一个营养级级联到另一个级联的途径。在这里，我们操纵了西大西洋河口形成栖息地的海藻的丰富度，以探索基础物种多样性的变化如何影响它们所支持的底栖消费者群落的结构和功能。结构方程模型表明，大型藻类的丰富度提高了无脊椎动物的丰度、生物量和多样性，这既直接通过改变基础基质的质量和适口性，也通过增加可用栖息地的总生物量间接实现。消费者的反应主要是由单一的基础海藻驱动的，尽管在无脊椎动物丰富度方面观察到大型藻类之间更强的互补性。这些具有不同基础门的发现扩展了早期从陆地草原得出的推论，表明生物多样性效应可以同时通过多个独立途径传播以维持动物食物网。我们的工作还强调了人类引起的海洋生态系统变化的潜在后果。