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Can monitoring data contribute to the biodiversity-ecosystem function debate? Evaluating data from a highly dynamic ecosystem

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Abstract

One of the most controversially discussed topics in current biodiversity-ecosystem function research is the transfer of results from experimental and theoretical studies to natural ecosystems. At the same time, monitoring data on biodiversity are requested as key indicators for the state of an ecosystem in most environmental evaluation frameworks. We analyse two monitoring data sets comprising information on abundance and biomass of macrozoobenthos communities in the German Wadden Sea in order to evaluate how much information monitoring data on biodiversity provide concerning ecosystem functioning and what implications this information (or the lack thereof) has for future monitoring programmes. Our results show a positive correlation between number of species of macrozoobenthos and its standing stock. Despite differences in overall biomass and individual size in different functional groups, this correlation remained consistent for different feeding guilds and therefore is likely to be independent of certain species traits. Moreover, functional turnover analyses indicate that increasing species richness is needed to maintain biomass levels over increasing periods of time. Whereas our data thus corroborate predictions from theory, we could not determine any causal relationships, because monitoring data commonly include only vague proxies for very few functional parameters, in our case standing biomass as a proxy for production. As to the use of diversity as an indicator for ecosystem functioning, we advise that management decisions are to be based on verified causal relationships and therefore strongly suggest the general incorporation of unambiguous proxies for functional parameters in the measuring campaigns of monitoring programmes.

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Acknowledgments

The Lower Saxony Ministry for Environment and Climate Protection and the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture funded this work as part of the collaborative research project WiMo (“Wissenschaftliche Monitoringkonzepte für die Deutsche Bucht”). We thank the Lower Saxony Water Management, Coastal Defence and Nature Conservation Agency and the National Park “Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer” for providing the data, especially M. Grotjahn and M. Reetz for their continuous support and advice and I. Kröncke for contributing additional species information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Planktology Working Group, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) Terramare, University of Oldenburg, AG Planktologie, Schleusenstraße 1, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Dorothee Hodapp & Helmut Hillebrand

  2. Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straß3, 52428 Jülich, Germany

    Dietmar Kraft

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  1. Dorothee Hodapp
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Correspondence to Dorothee Hodapp.

Electronic supplementary material

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Online Resource 1

List of the additional environmental parameters recorded for each sample

Online Resource 2

List of all species, their assigned feeding guilds and individual biomass values

Online Resource 3

Average relative contribution to total biomass for each species and station

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Hodapp, D., Kraft, D. & Hillebrand, H. Can monitoring data contribute to the biodiversity-ecosystem function debate? Evaluating data from a highly dynamic ecosystem. Biodivers Conserv 23, 405–419 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-013-0609-y

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