Ecosystem functioning is well known to be affected by species richness (the number of species), but species evenness (relative abundance of species) has been much less studied. Boon et al. investigated the effect of species unevenness in 1,260 denitrifying bacterial microcosms and found that initial evenness strongly improved ecosystem functioning, especially under stress.
- Lieven Wittebolle
- Massimo Marzorati
- Nico Boon
