Gravel D. auteur aut IRD Bell T. auteur aut IRD Barbera C. auteur aut IRD Bouvier Thierry auteur aut IRD Pommier T. auteur aut IRD Venail P. auteur aut IRD Mouquet N. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) has become a cornerstone of community and ecosystem ecology(1-3) and an essential criterion for making decisions in conservation biology and policy planning(4,5). It has recently been proposed that evolutionary history should influence the BEF relationship because it determines species traits and, thus, species' ability to exploit resources(6,7). Here we test this hypothesis by combining experimental evolution with a BEF experiment. We isolated 20 bacterial strains from a marine environment and evolved each to be generalists or specialists(8). We then tested the effect of evolutionary history on the strength of the BEF relationship with assemblages of 1 to 20 species constructed from the specialists, generalists and ancestors(9). Assemblages of generalists were more productive on average because of their superior ability to exploit the environmental heterogeneity(10). The slope of the BEF relationship was, however, stronger for the specialist assemblages because of enhanced niche complementarity. These results show how the BEF relationship depends critically on the legacy of past evolutionary events. specialized 021 082 020 469 7328 89-U1601 2011 0028-0836 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010053001 10.1038/nature09592 0028-0836 [F B010053001] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010053001 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2011/01/010053001.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2011-02-04 2017-08-23 fdi:010053001 fre