Fig. 6.

Intermediate stochasticity hypothesis (ISH) for community assembly under varying disturbances. Conceptual representation of the classic relationship between α-diversity and disturbance,³¹ including the effect of underlying stochastic and deterministic processes driving bacterial community assembly. When intermediate disturbance regimes result in less predictable environments, specialized traits would be less advantageous to taxa, and the stochastic equalization of competitive advantages would lead to higher α-diversity. On the contrary, extreme ends of the range where conditions are recurrent would select for adapted organisms whose dominance would result in a lower α-diversity