Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature

TY - JOUR

T1 - Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature

AU - Pigot, Alex L.

AU - Dee, Laura E.

AU - Richardson, Anthony J.

AU - Cooper, Declan L.M.

AU - Eisenhauer, Nico

AU - Gregory, Richard D.

AU - Lewis, Simon L.

AU - Macgregor, Callum J.

AU - Massimino, Dario

AU - Maynard, Daniel S.

AU - Phillips, Helen R.P.

AU - Rillo, Marina

AU - Loreau, Michel

AU - Haegeman, Bart

PY - 2025/3/21

Y1 - 2025/3/21

N2 - Despite advances in theory and experiments, how biodiversity influences the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems remains debated. By applying new theory to data on 84,695 plant, animal, and protist assemblages, we show that the general positive effect of species richness on stocks of biomass, as well as much of the variation in the strength and sign of this effect, is predicted by a fundamental macroecological quantity: the scaling of species abundance with body mass. Standing biomass increases with richness when large-bodied species are numerically rare but is independent of richness when species size and abundance are uncoupled. These results suggest a new fundamental law in the structure of ecological communities and show that the impacts of changes in species richness on biomass are predictable.

AB - Despite advances in theory and experiments, how biodiversity influences the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems remains debated. By applying new theory to data on 84,695 plant, animal, and protist assemblages, we show that the general positive effect of species richness on stocks of biomass, as well as much of the variation in the strength and sign of this effect, is predicted by a fundamental macroecological quantity: the scaling of species abundance with body mass. Standing biomass increases with richness when large-bodied species are numerically rare but is independent of richness when species size and abundance are uncoupled. These results suggest a new fundamental law in the structure of ecological communities and show that the impacts of changes in species richness on biomass are predictable.

U2 - 10.1126/science.adq3278

DO - 10.1126/science.adq3278

M3 - Article

C2 - 40112057

AN - SCOPUS:105001667220

SN - 0036-8075

VL - 387

SP - 1272

EP - 1276

JO - Science (New York, N.Y.)

JF - Science (New York, N.Y.)

IS - 6740

ER -