Data from: Strength of species interactions determines biodiversity and stability in microbial communities

Organisms, especially microbes, tend to live in complex communities. While
some of these ecosystems are very bio-diverse, others aren′t, and while
some are very stable over time others undergo strong temporal
fluctuations. Despite a long history of research and a plethora of data it
is not fully understood what sets biodiversity and stability of
ecosystems. Theory as well as experiments suggest a connection between
species interaction, biodiversity, and stability of ecosystems, where an
increase of ecosystem stability with biodiversity could be observed in
several cases. However, what causes these connections remains unclear.
Here we show in microbial ecosystems in the lab that the concentrations of
available nutrients can set the strength of interactions between bacteria.
At high nutrient concentrations, extensive microbial growth leads to
strong chemical modifications of the environment, causing more negative
interactions between species. These stronger interactions exclude more
species from the community, resulting in a loss of biodiversity. At the
same time, these stronger interactions also decrease the stability of the
microbial communities, providing a mechanistic link between species
interaction, biodiversity and stability.