Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature
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.
Authors
- Michel Loreau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0122-495X)
- Marina Costa Rillo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2471-0002)
- Nico Eisenhauer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0371-6720)
- Declan L. M. Cooper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2466-7710)
- Laura E. Dee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0471-1371)
- Simon L. Lewis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8066-6851)
- Alex L. Pigot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6490-6261)
- Anthony James Richardson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9289-7366)
- Daniel S. Maynard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0142-9100)
- Callum J. Macgregor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8281-8284)
- Helen R. P. Phillips (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7435-5934)
- Bart Haegeman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2325-4727)
- Richard D. Gregory (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7419-5053)
- Dario Massimino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5855-4060)
Institutions
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (DE)
- University of Leeds (GB)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (GB)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Peking University (CN)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NL)
- Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer (FR)
- Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital NHS Trust (GB)
- Station d’Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale (FR)
- Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne (FR)
- University College London (GB)
- Saint Mary's University (CA)
- British Trust for Ornithology (GB)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2025-03-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq3278
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.51