1. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK
2. Molecular Microbial Ecology Group, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3SR, UK
3. Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada
4. St. Peter's College, Oxford, OX1 2DL, UK

Correspondence to: Andrew K. Lilley² Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.K.L. (Email: akl@ceh.ac.uk).

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 function¹, 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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