Abstract
Naeem and Li reply — Wardle's concerns arise from conflating biodiversity loss within an ecosystem (our study1) with biodiversity loss among ecosystems. To examine biodiversity loss within an ecosystem experimentally, a community is compared with more depauperate versions of itself2,3. This design mimics the pattern observed in nature and sheds light on theory and mechanisms. Our experiment followed this approach to test predictions of reliability theory based on the mechanism of compensatory growth among redundant species.
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References
Naeem, S. & Li, S. Nature 390, 507–509 (1997).
Naeem, S. et al. Nature 368, 734–737 (1994).
Tilman, D. et al. Science 277, 1300–1302 (1997).
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Naeem, S., Li, S. A more reliable design for biodiversity study?. Nature 394, 30 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/27815
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/27815
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