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      The contribution of species richness and composition to bacterial services.

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          Abstract

          Bacterial communities provide important services. They break down pollutants, municipal waste and ingested food, and they are the primary means by which organic matter is recycled to plants and other autotrophs. However, the processes that determine the rate at which these services are supplied are only starting to be identified. Biodiversity influences the way in which ecosystems function, but the form of the relationship between bacterial biodiversity and functioning remains poorly understood. Here we describe a manipulative experiment that measured how biodiversity affects the functioning of communities containing up to 72 bacterial species constructed from a collection of naturally occurring culturable bacteria. The experimental design allowed us to manipulate large numbers of bacterial species selected at random from those that were culturable. We demonstrate that there is a decelerating relationship between community respiration and increasing bacterial diversity. We also show that both synergistic interactions among bacterial species and the composition of the bacterial community are important in determining the level of ecosystem functioning.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Nature
          Nature
          Springer Nature
          1476-4687
          0028-0836
          Aug 25 2005
          : 436
          : 7054
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK.
          Article
          nature03891
          10.1038/nature03891
          16121181
          b2c148ac-5a01-48e0-b5fb-fa9aaaed0bbc
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