title: Diversity is the question, not the answer.
abstract: Local diversity (within-sample or alpha diversity) is often implicated as a cause of success or failure of a microbial community. However, the relationships between diversity and emergent properties of a community, such as its stability, productivity or invasibility, are much more nuanced. I argue that diversity without context provides limited insights into the mechanisms underpinning community patterns. I provide examples from traditional and microbial ecology to discuss common complications and assumptions about within-sample diversity that may prevent us from digging deeper into the more specific mechanisms underpinning community outcomes. I suggest that measurement of diversity should serve as a starting point for further inquiry of ecological mechanisms rather than an 'answer' to community outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, and DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shade
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D064307:Microbiota