Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis in Phytoplankton Ecology

1993 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis ◽  
Intermediate Disturbance ◽  
Phytoplankton Ecology ◽  
Disturbance Hypothesis

scholarly journals Diversity–disturbance relationships: frequency and intensity interact

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 768-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex R. Hall ◽  
Adam D. Miller ◽  
Helen C. Leggett ◽  
Stephen H. Roxburgh ◽  
Angus Buckling ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Ecological Theory ◽  
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis ◽  
Intermediate Disturbance ◽  
Disturbance Frequency ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
Experimental Populations ◽  
Disturbance Hypothesis

An influential ecological theory, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH), predicts that intermediate levels of disturbance will maximize species diversity. Empirical studies, however, have described a wide variety of diversity–disturbance relationships (DDRs). Using experimental populations of microbes, we show that the form of the DDR depends on an interaction between disturbance frequency and intensity. We find that diversity shows a monotonically increasing, unimodal or flat relationship with disturbance, depending on the values of the disturbance aspects considered. These results confirm recent theoretical predictions, and potentially reconcile the conflicting body of empirical evidence on DDRs.

A phytoplankton community in a temperate reservoir in New South Wales, Australia: relationships between similarity and diversity indices and measures of hydrological disturbance

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsuyoshi Kobayashi ◽  
Brian G. Sanderson ◽  
Geoff N. G. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Phytoplankton Community ◽  
New South ◽  
Diversity Indices ◽  
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis ◽  
Species Number ◽  
Intermediate Disturbance ◽  
Consecutive Sampling ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Cell Densities ◽  
Disturbance Hypothesis

Temporal changes in diversity and similarity of a phytoplankton community were investigated in relation to external hydrological disturbance in the Ben Chifley reservoir from September 1998 to January 2002. Species richness varied by a factor of 4–5 at each of three sites studied during the period (n = 53 at each site). Species diversity (measured using Simpson’s D and Shannon–Wiener’s H, based on primarily genus or species number and cell densities) varied by a factor of 8–10, whereas similarity between two consecutive sampling dates (measured using Hurlbert’s index and Pinkham and Pearson’s B) varied by a factor of 10–46. When diversity was measured with H, it had an approximate quadratic (convex) relationship with similarity, as measured with Hurlbert’s index. However, diversity was seldom related to external hydrological disturbance (measured as intensity and variability of daily inflow rates between two consecutive sampling dates). Similarity was significantly and negatively related to disturbance variability. These results suggest that the mechanisms that regulate diversity and similarity may differ from each other, and question the usefulness of observed approximate quadratic relationships between similarity and diversity indices when assessing the effect of disturbance on diversity. Such relationships may therefore not provide support for Connell’s (1978) intermediate disturbance hypothesis.

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