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Several theoretical studies propose that biodiversity buffers ecosystem functioning against environmental fluctuations, but virtually all of these studies concern a single trophic level, the primary producers. Changes in biodiversity also affect ecosystem processes through trophic interactions. Therefore, it is important to understand how trophic interactions affect the relationship between biodiversity and the stability of ecosystem processes. Here we present two models to investigate this issue in ecosystems with two trophic levels. The first is an analytically tractable symmetrical plant‐herbivore model under random environmental fluctuations, while the second is a mechanistic ecosystem model under periodic environmental fluctuations. Our analysis shows that when diversity affects net species interaction strength, species interactions—both competition among plants and plant‐herbivore interactions—have a strong …