Nature Communications (Nov 2021)

Species richness and identity both determine the biomass of global reef fish communities

  • Jonathan S. Lefcheck,
  • Graham J. Edgar,
  • Rick D. Stuart-Smith,
  • Amanda E. Bates,
  • Conor Waldock,
  • Simon J. Brandl,
  • Stuart Kininmonth,
  • Scott D. Ling,
  • J. Emmett Duffy,
  • Douglas B. Rasher,
  • Aneil F. Agrawal

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27212-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Species identity and richness both contribute biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. Here the authors apply a decomposition approach inspired by the Price equation to a global dataset of reef fish community biomass, finding that increased richness and community compositions favouring large-bodied species enhance biomass.