Abstract
External agents of mortality (disturbances) occur over a wide range of scales of space and time, and are believed to have large effects on species diversity. The “intermediate disturbance hypothesis”1,2,3, which proposes maximum diversity at intermediate frequencies of disturbance, has received support from both field4,5 and laboratory6,7 studies. Coexistence of species at intermediate frequencies of disturbance is thought to require trade-offs between competitive ability and disturbance tolerance8, and a metapopulation structure, with disturbance affecting only a few patches at any given time9,10,11. However, a unimodal relationship can also be generated by global disturbances that affect all patches simultaneously, provided that the environment contains spatial niches to which different species are adapted12. Here we report the results of tests of this model using both isogenic and diverse populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens. In both cases, a unimodal relationship between diversity and disturbance frequency was generated in heterogeneous, but not in homogeneous, environments. The cause of this relationship is competition among niche-specialist genotypes, which maintains diversity at intermediate disturbance, but not at high or low disturbance. Our results show that disturbance can modulate the effect of spatial heterogeneity on biological diversity in natural environments.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Grime, J. P. Control of species diversity in herbaceous vegetation. J. Environ. Mgmt 1, 151–167 ( 1973).
Connell, J. H. Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs. Science 199, 1302–1310 (1978).
Huston, M. A. Biological Diversity (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1994).
Floder, S. & Sommer, U. Diversity in planktonic communities: An experimental test of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis. Limnol. Oceanogr. 44, 1114–1119 (1999).
Sousa, W. P. Disturbance in marine intertidal boulder fields: the nonequilibrium maintenance of species diversity. Ecology 60, 1225– 1239 (1979).
Gaedeke, A. & Sommer, U. The influence of the frequency of periodic disturbances on the maintenance of phytoplankton diversity. Oecologia 71, 25–28 ( 1986).
Weider, L. J. Disturbance, competition and the maintenance of clonal diversity in Daphnia pulex. J. Evol. Biol. 5, 505– 522 (1992).
Petraitis, P. S., Latham, R. E. & Niesanbaum, R. A. The maintenance of species diversity by disturbance. Q. Rev. Biol. 64, 393– 418 (1989).
Rosenzweig, M. L. Species Diversity in Space and Time (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1995).
Slatkin, M. Competition and regional coexistence. Ecology 55, 128–134 (1974).
Levin, S. A. & Paine, R. T. Disturbance, patch formation, and community structure. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 71, 2744–2747 (1974).
Chesson, P. & Huntly, N. The roles of harsh and fluctuating conditions in the dynamics of ecological communities. Am. Nat. 150, 519–553 ( 1997).
Korona, R., Nakatsu, C. H., Forney, L. J. & Lenski, R. E. Evidence for multiple adaptive peaks from populations of bacteria evolving in a structured habitat. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 91, 9037–9041 (1994).
Bell, G. A. C. Experimental evolution in Chlamydomonas. 1. Short-term selection in uniform and diverse environments. Heredity 78, 490–497 (1997).
Rainey, P. B. & Travisano, M. Adaptive radiation in a heterogeneous environment. Nature 394, 69– 72 (1998).
Kassen, R., Buckling, A., Bell, G. & Rainey, P. B. Diversity peaks at intermediate productivity in experimental microcosms. Nature 406, 508–512 ( 2000).
Levene, H. Genetic polymorphism when more than one ecological niche is available. Am. Nat. 87, 331–333 ( 1953).
Gause, G. F. The Struggle for Existence (Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1934).
Rainey, P. B., Buckling, A., Kassen, R. & Travisano, M. The emergence and maintenance of diversity: Insights from experimental bacterial populations. Trends Ecol. Evol. 15, 243– 247 (2000).
Lenski, R. E., Rose, M. R., Simpson, S. C. & Tadler, S. C. Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. 1. Adaptation and divergence during 2,000 generations. Am. Nat. 138 , 1315–1341 (1991).
Atwood, K. C., Schneider, L. K. & Ryan, F. J. Selective mechanisms in bacteria. Cold Spring Harb. Symp. Quant. Biol. 16, 345– 354 (1952).
Elena, S. F., Cooper, V. S. & Lenski, R. E. Punctuated evolution caused by selection of rare beneficial mutations. Science 272, 1802– 1804 (1996).
Haldane, J. B. S. The Causes of Evolution (Harper, New York, 1932)
Ayala, F. J. & Campbell, C. A. Frequency-dependent selection. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 5, 115– 138 (1974).
Milton, W. E. J. & Davies, R. O. The yield, botanical and chemical composition of natural hill herbage under manuring, controlled grazing and hay conditions. J. Ecol. 35, 65–95 (1947).
Milchunas, D. G. & Lauenroth, W. K. Quantitative effects of grazing on vegetation and soils over a global range of environments. Ecol. Monogr. 63, 327– 366 (1993).
Collins, S. L. Interaction of disturbances in tallgrass prairie: a field experiment. Ecology 68, 1243–1250 ( 1987).
Collins, S. L., Knapp, A. K., Briggs, J. M., Blair, J. M. & Steinauer, E. M. Modulation of diversity by grazing and mowing in native tallgrass prairie. Science 280, 745–747 (1998).
Simpson, E. H. Measurement of diversity. Nature 163, 688 (1949).
Crawley, M. J. GLIM for Ecologists (Blackwell Science, Oxford, 1993 ).
Acknowledgements
We thank J. Pannell, N. Colegrave, K. McCann and M. Brockhurst for comments and discussion. This work was supported by the UK NERC and BBSRC (A.B. and P.B.R.), the Canadian NSERC (G.B. and R.K.) and the British Council.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Buckling, A., Kassen, R., Bell, G. et al. Disturbance and diversity in experimental microcosms. Nature 408, 961–964 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35050080
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35050080
This article is cited by
-
Estimating appropriate mowing timing for the population of an endangered butterfly inhabiting grassland patches in an agricultural landscape
Journal of Insect Conservation (2024)
-
Naturally occurring fire coral clones demonstrate a genetic and environmental basis of microbiome composition
Nature Communications (2021)
-
Evolution of diversity explains the impact of pre-adaptation of a focal species on the structure of a natural microbial community
The ISME Journal (2020)
-
Mortality causes universal changes in microbial community composition
Nature Communications (2019)
-
Selective bacterial colonization processes on polyethylene waste samples in an abandoned landfill site
Scientific Reports (2019)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.