1
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Deng J, Cordero OX, Fukami T, Levin SA, Pringle RM, Solé R, Saavedra S. The development of ecological systems along paths of least resistance. Curr Biol 2024:S0960-9822(24)01165-5. [PMID: 39332401 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.08.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2023] [Revised: 07/25/2024] [Accepted: 08/28/2024] [Indexed: 09/29/2024]
Abstract
A long-standing question in biology is whether there are common principles that characterize the development of ecological systems (the appearance of a group of taxa), regardless of organismal diversity and environmental context.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 Classic ecological theory holds that these systems develop following a sequenced, orderly process that generally proceeds from fast-growing to slow-growing taxa and depends on life-history trade-offs.2,12,13 However, it is also possible that this developmental order is simply the path with the least environmental resistance for survival of the component species and hence favored by probability alone. Here, we use theory and data to show that the order from fast- to slow-growing taxa is the most likely developmental path for diverse systems when local taxon interactions self-organize in light of environmental resistance. First, we demonstrate theoretically that a sequenced development is more likely than a simultaneous one, at least until the number of iterations becomes so large as to be ecologically implausible. We then show that greater diversity of taxa and life histories improves the likelihood of a sequenced order from fast- to slow-growing taxa. Using data from bacterial and metazoan systems,14,15,16,17,18,19 we present empirical evidence that the developmental order of ecological systems moves along the paths of least environmental resistance. The capacity of simple principles to explain the trend in the developmental order of diverse ecological systems paves the way to an enhanced understanding of collective features of life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Deng
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Otto X Cordero
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Tadashi Fukami
- Departments of Biology and Earth System Science, Stanford University, 371 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Simon A Levin
- Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Robert M Pringle
- Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Ricard Solé
- Complex Systems Laboratory, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain; Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
| | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
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2
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Wang W, Wu H, Wu T, Luo Z, Lin W, Liu H, Xiao J, Luo W, Li Y, Wang Y, Song C, Kandlikar G, Chu C. Soil microbial influences over coexistence potential in multispecies plant communities in a subtropical forest. Ecology 2024:e4415. [PMID: 39267580 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2024] [Accepted: 06/27/2024] [Indexed: 09/17/2024]
Abstract
Soil microbes have long been recognized to substantially affect the coexistence of pairwise plant species across terrestrial ecosystems. However, projecting their impacts on the coexistence of multispecies plant systems remains a pressing challenge. To address this challenge, we conducted a greenhouse experiment with 540 seedlings of five tree species in a subtropical forest in China and evaluated microbial effects on multispecies coexistence using the structural method, which quantifies how the structure of species interactions influences the likelihood for multiple species to persist. Specifically, we grew seedlings alone or with competitors in different microbial contexts and fitted individual biomass to a population dynamic model to calculate intra- and interspecific interaction strength with and without soil microbes. We then used these interaction structures to calculate two metrics of multispecies coexistence, structural niche differences (which promote coexistence) and structural fitness differences (which drive exclusion), for all possible communities comprising two to five plant species. We found that soil microbes generally increased both the structural niche and fitness differences across all communities, with a much stronger effect on structural fitness differences. A further examination of functional traits between plant species pairs found that trait differences are stronger predictors of structural niche differences than of structural fitness differences, and that soil microbes have the potential to change trait-mediated plant interactions. Our findings underscore that soil microbes strongly influence the coexistence of multispecies plant systems, and also add to the experimental evidence that the influence is more on fitness differences rather than on niche differences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weitao Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Hangyu Wu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Tingting Wu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zijing Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wei Lin
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Hanlun Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Junli Xiao
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wenqi Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuanzhi Li
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Youshi Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Chuliang Song
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Gaurav Kandlikar
- Divisions of Biological Sciences and Plant Sciences & Technology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA
- Division of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
| | - Chengjin Chu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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3
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LaManna JA, Hartig F, Myers JA, Freckleton RP, Detto M, Surendra A, Doolittle CJ, Bachelot B, Bagchi R, Comita LS, DeFilippis DM, Huanca-Nunez N, Hülsmann L, Jevon FV, Johnson DJ, Krishnadas M, Magee LJ, Mangan SA, Milici VR, Murengera ALB, Schnitzer SA, Smith DJB, Stein C, Sullivan MK, Torres E, Umaña MN, Delavaux CS. Consequences of Local Conspecific Density Effects for Plant Diversity and Community Dynamics. Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14506. [PMID: 39354892 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14506] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2023] [Revised: 08/05/2024] [Accepted: 08/11/2024] [Indexed: 10/03/2024]
Abstract
Conspecific density dependence (CDD) in plant populations is widespread, most likely caused by local-scale biotic interactions, and has potentially important implications for biodiversity, community composition, and ecosystem processes. However, progress in this important area of ecology has been hindered by differing viewpoints on CDD across subfields in ecology, lack of synthesis across CDD-related frameworks, and misunderstandings about how empirical measurements of local CDD fit within the context of broader ecological theories on community assembly and diversity maintenance. Here, we propose a conceptual synthesis of local-scale CDD and its causes, including species-specific antagonistic and mutualistic interactions. First, we compare and clarify different uses of CDD and related concepts across subfields within ecology. We suggest the use of local stabilizing/destabilizing CDD to refer to the scenario where local conspecific density effects are more negative/positive than heterospecific effects. Second, we discuss different mechanisms for local stabilizing and destabilizing CDD, how those mechanisms are interrelated, and how they cut across several fields of study within ecology. Third, we place local stabilizing/destabilizing CDD within the context of broader ecological theories and discuss implications and challenges related to scaling up the effects of local CDD on populations, communities, and metacommunities. The ultimate goal of this synthesis is to provide a conceptual roadmap for researchers studying local CDD and its implications for population and community dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph A LaManna
- Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
| | - Florian Hartig
- Theoretical Ecology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Jonathan A Myers
- Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Robert P Freckleton
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Matteo Detto
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Akshay Surendra
- School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Cole J Doolittle
- Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
| | - Bénédicte Bachelot
- Department of Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
| | - Robert Bagchi
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA
| | - Liza S Comita
- School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - David M DeFilippis
- Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
| | | | - Lisa Hülsmann
- Ecosystem Analysis and Simulation (EASI) Lab, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
- Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
| | - Fiona V Jevon
- School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Daniel J Johnson
- School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Meghna Krishnadas
- CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
- Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, India
| | - Lukas J Magee
- School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Scott A Mangan
- Arkansas Biosciences Institute, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA
| | - Valerie R Milici
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
| | | | - Stefan A Schnitzer
- Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
| | - Daniel J B Smith
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
| | - Claudia Stein
- Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Auburn University at Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, USA
| | - Megan K Sullivan
- School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Ethan Torres
- Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
| | - María Natalia Umaña
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Camille S Delavaux
- Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich, Switzerland
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4
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Suding KN, Collins CG, Hallett LM, Larios L, Brigham LM, Dudney J, Farrer EC, Larson JE, Shackelford N, Spasojevic MJ. Biodiversity in changing environments: An external-driver internal-topology framework to guide intervention. Ecology 2024; 105:e4322. [PMID: 39014865 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2023] [Revised: 01/15/2024] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024]
Abstract
Accompanying the climate crisis is the more enigmatic biodiversity crisis. Rapid reorganization of biodiversity due to global environmental change has defied prediction and tested the basic tenets of conservation and restoration. Conceptual and practical innovation is needed to support decision making in the face of these unprecedented shifts. Critical questions include: How can we generalize biodiversity change at the community level? When are systems able to reorganize and maintain integrity, and when does abiotic change result in collapse or restructuring? How does this understanding provide a template to guide when and how to intervene in conservation and restoration? To this end, we frame changes in community organization as the modulation of external abiotic drivers on the internal topology of species interactions, using plant-plant interactions in terrestrial communities as a starting point. We then explore how this framing can help translate available data on species abundance and trait distributions to corresponding decisions in management. Given the expectation that community response and reorganization are highly complex, the external-driver internal-topology (EDIT) framework offers a way to capture general patterns of biodiversity that can help guide resilience and adaptation in changing environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharine N Suding
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Courtney G Collins
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Biodiversity Research Centre, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Lauren M Hallett
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
| | - Loralee Larios
- Department of Botany & Plant Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
| | - Laurel M Brigham
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
| | - Joan Dudney
- Environmental Studies Program, Santa Barbara, California, USA
- Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA
| | - Emily C Farrer
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
| | - Julie E Larson
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- USDA Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, Burns, Oregon, USA
| | - Nancy Shackelford
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Marko J Spasojevic
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
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5
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Wang S, Hong P, Adler PB, Allan E, Hautier Y, Schmid B, Spaak JW, Feng Y. Towards mechanistic integration of the causes and consequences of biodiversity. Trends Ecol Evol 2024; 39:689-700. [PMID: 38503639 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2024.02.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2023] [Revised: 02/21/2024] [Accepted: 02/23/2024] [Indexed: 03/21/2024]
Abstract
The global biodiversity crisis has stimulated decades of research on three themes: species coexistence, biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships (BEF), and biodiversity-ecosystem functional stability relationships (BEFS). However, studies on these themes are largely independent, creating barriers to an integrative understanding of the causes and consequences of biodiversity. Here we review recent progress towards mechanistic integration of coexistence, BEF, and BEFS. Mechanisms underlying the three themes can be linked in various ways, potentially creating either positive or negative relationships between them. That said, we generally expect positive associations between coexistence and BEF, and between BEF and BEFS. Our synthesis represents an initial step towards integrating causes and consequences of biodiversity; future developments should include more mechanistic approaches and broader ecological contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaopeng Wang
- Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
| | - Pubin Hong
- Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Peter B Adler
- Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA
| | - Eric Allan
- Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013 Bern, Switzerland; Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, Bern 3012, Switzerland
| | - Yann Hautier
- Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584, CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Bernhard Schmid
- Remote Sensing Laboratories, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Jurg W Spaak
- Landscape ecology, RPTU Kaiserslautern Landau, 76829 Landau, Germany
| | - Yanhao Feng
- State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730020, China
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6
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Gibbs TL, Gellner G, Levin SA, McCann KS, Hastings A, Levine JM. When can higher-order interactions produce stable coexistence? Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14458. [PMID: 38877741 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14458] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2023] [Revised: 05/23/2024] [Accepted: 05/24/2024] [Indexed: 06/16/2024]
Abstract
Most ecological models are based on the assumption that species interact in pairs. Diverse communities, however, can have higher-order interactions, in which two or more species jointly impact the growth of a third species. A pitfall of the common pairwise approach is that it misses the higher-order interactions potentially responsible for maintaining natural diversity. Here, we explore the stability properties of systems where higher-order interactions guarantee that a specified set of abundances is a feasible equilibrium of the dynamics. Even these higher-order interactions which lead to equilibria do not necessarily produce stable coexistence. Instead, these systems are more likely to be stable when the pairwise interactions are weak or facilitative. Correlations between the pairwise and higher-order interactions, however, do permit robust coexistence even in diverse systems. Our work not only reveals the challenges in generating stable coexistence through higher-order interactions but also uncovers interaction patterns that can enable diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Theo L Gibbs
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Gabriel Gellner
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
| | - Simon A Levin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Kevin S McCann
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
| | - Alan Hastings
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California at Davis, Davis, California, USA
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
| | - Jonathan M Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
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7
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Duckett M, Taylor MN, Bowman C, Vega NM. Parallel evolution of alternate morphotypes of Chryseobacterium gleum during experimental evolution with Caenorhabditis elegans. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 2024; 100:fiae039. [PMID: 38549432 PMCID: PMC11004935 DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiae039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2023] [Revised: 03/05/2024] [Accepted: 03/27/2024] [Indexed: 04/11/2024] Open
Abstract
Microbial evolution within polymicrobial communities is a complex process. Here, we report within-species diversification within multispecies microbial communities during experimental evolution with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We describe morphological diversity in the target species Chryseobacterium gleum, which developed a novel colony morphotype in a small number of replicate communities. Alternate morphotypes coexisted with original morphotypes in communities, as well as in single-species experiments using evolved isolates. We found that the original and alternate morphotypes differed in motility and in spatial expansion in the presence of C. elegans. This study provides insight into the emergence and maintenance of intraspecies diversity in the context of microbial communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marissa Duckett
- Department of Biology, Emory University, 1510 Clifton Road NE #2006, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States
| | - Megan N Taylor
- Department of Biology, Emory University, 1510 Clifton Road NE #2006, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States
| | - Claire Bowman
- Department of Biology, Emory University, 1510 Clifton Road NE #2006, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States
| | - Nic M Vega
- Department of Biology, Emory University, 1510 Clifton Road NE #2006, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States
- Department of Physics, Emory University, 400 Dowman Dr, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States
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8
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Barabás G. Parameter Sensitivity of Transient Community Dynamics. Am Nat 2024; 203:473-489. [PMID: 38489777 DOI: 10.1086/728764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
AbstractTransient dynamics have always intrigued ecologists, but current rapid environmental change (inducing transients even in previously undisturbed systems) has highlighted their importance more than ever. Here, I introduce a method for analyzing the sensitivity of transient ecological dynamics to parameter perturbations. The question the method answers is: how would the community dynamics have unfolded for some time horizon had the parameters been slightly different? I apply the method to three empirically parameterized models: competition between native forbs and exotic grasses in California, a host-parasitoid system, and an experimental chemostat predator-prey model. These applications showcase the ecological insights one can gain from models using transient sensitivity analysis. First, one can find parameters and their combinations whose perturbations disproportionately affect a system. Second, one can identify particular windows of time during which the predicted deviation from the unperturbed trajectories is especially large and utilize this information for management purposes. Third, there is an inverse relationship between transient and long-term sensitivities whenever the interacting populations are ecologically similar; paradoxically, the smaller the immediate response of the system, the more extreme its long-term response will be.
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9
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Buche L, Bartomeus I, Godoy O. Multitrophic Higher-Order Interactions Modulate Species Persistence. Am Nat 2024; 203:458-472. [PMID: 38489780 DOI: 10.1086/729222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
AbstractEcologists increasingly recognize that interactions between two species can be affected by the density of a third species. How these higher-order interactions (HOIs) affect species persistence remains poorly understood. To explore the effect of HOIs stemming from multiple trophic layers on a plant community composition, we experimentally built a mesocosm with three plants and three pollinator species arranged in a fully nested and modified network structure. We estimated pairwise interactions among plants and between plants and pollinators, as well as HOIs initiated by a plant or a pollinator affecting plant species pairs. Using a structuralist approach, we evaluated the consequences of the statistically supported HOIs on the persistence probability of each of the three competing plant species and their combinations. HOIs substantially redistribute the strength and sign of pairwise interactions between plant species, promoting the opportunities for multispecies communities to persist compared with a non-HOI scenario. However, the physical elimination of a plant-pollinator link in the modified network structure promotes changes in per capita pairwise interactions and HOIs, resulting in a single-species community. Our study provides empirical evidence of the joint importance of HOIs and network structure in determining species persistence within diverse communities.
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10
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Ranjan R, Koffel T, Klausmeier CA. The three-species problem: Incorporating competitive asymmetry and intransitivity in modern coexistence theory. Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14426. [PMID: 38603592 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14426] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2023] [Revised: 02/28/2024] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/13/2024]
Abstract
While natural communities can contain hundreds of species, modern coexistence theory focuses primarily on species pairs. Alternatively, the structural stability approach considers the feasibility of equilibria, gaining scalability to larger communities but sacrificing information about dynamic stability. Three-species competitive communities are a bridge to more-diverse communities. They display novel phenomena while remaining amenable to mathematical analysis, but remain incompletely understood. Here, we combine these approaches to identify the key quantities that determine three-species competition outcomes. We show that pairwise niche overlap and fitness differences are insufficient to completely characterize competitive outcomes, which requires a strictly triplet-wise quantity: cyclic asymmetry, which underlies intransitivity. Low pairwise niche overlap stabilizes the triplet, while high fitness differences promote competitive exclusion. The effect of cyclic asymmetry on stability is complex and depends on pairwise niche overlap. In summary, we elucidate how pairwise niche overlap, fitness differences and cyclic asymmetry determine three-species competition outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ravi Ranjan
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, USA
- Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Germany
| | - Thomas Koffel
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, USA
- Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
| | - Christopher A Klausmeier
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, USA
- Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, USA
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11
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Song C, Spaak JW. Trophic tug-of-war: Coexistence mechanisms within and across trophic levels. Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14409. [PMID: 38590122 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14409] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2023] [Revised: 02/26/2024] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/10/2024]
Abstract
Ecological communities encompass rich diversity across multiple trophic levels. While modern coexistence theory has been widely applied to understand community assembly, its traditional formalism only allows assembly within a single trophic level. Here, using an expanded definition of niche and fitness differences applicable to multitrophic communities, we study how diversity within and across trophic levels affects species coexistence. If each trophic level is analysed separately, both lower- and higher trophic levels are governed by the same coexistence mechanisms. In contrast, if the multitrophic community is analysed as a whole, different trophic levels are governed by different coexistence mechanisms: coexistence at lower trophic levels is predominantly limited by fitness differences, whereas coexistence at higher trophic levels is predominantly limited by niche differences. This dichotomy in coexistence mechanisms is supported by theoretical derivations, simulations of phenomenological and trait-based models, and a case study of a primeval forest ecosystem. Our work provides a general and testable prediction of coexistence mechanism operating in multitrophic communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chuliang Song
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Jurg W Spaak
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Institute for Environmental Sciences, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Landau, Germany
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12
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Canepuccia AD, Hidalgo FJ, Fanjul E, Iribarne OO. Reciprocal facilitation between ants and small mammals in tidal marshes. Oecologia 2024; 204:575-588. [PMID: 38376632 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-024-05513-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2023] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 02/21/2024]
Abstract
The role of facilitation in shaping natural communities has primarily been studied in the context of plant assemblages, while its relevance for mobile animals remains less understood. Our study investigates whether reciprocal interspecific facilitation may exist between fire ants (Solenopsis richteri) and cavies (Cavia aperea), two mobile animals, in the SW Atlantic coast brackish marshes. Field samples showed a spatial association between ant mounds and cavies, and that ants prefer to use cavy runways for movement within the marsh. Through experiments involving transplanting the dominant plant, cordgrass (Spartina densiflora), and manipulating cavy presence in areas with and without ant mounds, we observed that cavies forage extensively (and defecate more) near ant mounds. The ants actively remove cavy droppings in their mound vicinity. These ant activities and interactions with cavy droppings led to reduced moisture and organic content while increasing nitrate and phosphate levels in marsh sediment. Consequently, this enhanced plant growth, indirectly facilitating the cavies, which preferred consuming vegetation near ant mounds. These cascading indirect effects persisted over time; even four months after cavies left the marshes, transplanted plants near ant mounds remained larger and exhibited more leaf senescence when exposed to cavy herbivory. Therefore, the networks of positive interactions appear to generate simultaneous selection among species (populations), promoting coexistence within the community. Although complex, these reciprocal facilitative effects among mobile animals may be more common than currently believed and should be further studied to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving species coexistence in natural communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandro D Canepuccia
- Laboratorio de Ecología, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Funes 3250, 7600, Mar del Plata, Argentina.
| | - Fernando J Hidalgo
- Grupo Humedales y Ambientes Costeros, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Funes 3250, 7600, Mar del Plata, Argentina
| | - Eugenia Fanjul
- Laboratorio de Ecología, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Funes 3250, 7600, Mar del Plata, Argentina
| | - Oscar O Iribarne
- Laboratorio de Ecología, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Funes 3250, 7600, Mar del Plata, Argentina
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13
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Fung T, Pande J, Shnerb NM, O'Dwyer JP, Chisholm RA. Processes governing species richness in communities exposed to temporal environmental stochasticity: A review and synthesis of modelling approaches. Math Biosci 2024; 369:109131. [PMID: 38113973 DOI: 10.1016/j.mbs.2023.109131] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2023] [Revised: 11/10/2023] [Accepted: 12/15/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Abstract
Research into the processes governing species richness has often assumed that the environment is fixed, whereas realistic environments are often characterised by random fluctuations over time. This temporal environmental stochasticity (TES) changes the demographic rates of species populations, with cascading effects on community dynamics and species richness. Theoretical and applied studies have used process-based mathematical models to determine how TES affects species richness, but under a variety of frameworks. Here, we critically review such studies to synthesise their findings and draw general conclusions. We first provide a broad mathematical framework encompassing the different ways in which TES has been modelled. We then review studies that have analysed models with TES under the assumption of negligible interspecific interactions, such that a community is conceptualised as the sum of independent species populations. These analyses have highlighted how TES can reduce species richness by increasing the frequency at which a species becomes rare and therefore prone to extinction. Next, we review studies that have relaxed the assumption of negligible interspecific interactions. To simplify the corresponding models and make them analytically tractable, such studies have used mean-field theory to derive fixed parameters representing the typical strength of interspecific interactions under TES. The resulting analyses have highlighted community-level effects that determine how TES affects species richness, for species that compete for a common limiting resource. With short temporal correlations of environmental conditions, a non-linear averaging effect of interspecific competition strength over time gives an increase in species richness. In contrast, with long temporal correlations of environmental conditions, strong selection favouring the fittest species between changes in environmental conditions results in a decrease in species richness. We compare such results with those from invasion analysis, which examines invasion growth rates (IGRs) instead of species richness directly. Qualitative differences sometimes arise because the IGR is the expected growth rate of a species when it is rare, which does not capture the variation around this mean or the probability of the species becoming rare. Our review elucidates key processes that have been found to mediate the negative and positive effects of TES on species richness, and by doing so highlights key areas for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tak Fung
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 16 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117558, Singapore.
| | - Jayant Pande
- Department of Physical and Natural Sciences, FLAME University, Pune, Maharashtra 412115, India
| | - Nadav M Shnerb
- Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel
| | - James P O'Dwyer
- Department of Plant Biology, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois, 505, South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, United States
| | - Ryan A Chisholm
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 16 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117558, Singapore
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14
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Bimler MD, Stouffer DB, Martyn TE, Mayfield MM. Plant interaction networks reveal the limits of our understanding of diversity maintenance. Ecol Lett 2024; 27:e14376. [PMID: 38361464 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14376] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2023] [Revised: 12/17/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
Species interactions are key drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Current theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of interactions make many assumptions which unfortunately, do not always hold in natural, diverse communities. This mismatch extends to annual plants, a common model system for studying coexistence, where interactions are typically averaged across environmental conditions and transitive competitive hierarchies are assumed to dominate. We quantify interaction networks for a community of annual wildflowers in Western Australia across a natural shade gradient at local scales. Whilst competition dominated, intraspecific and interspecific facilitation were widespread in all shade categories. Interaction strengths and directions varied substantially despite close spatial proximity and similar levels of local species richness, with most species interacting in different ways under different environmental conditions. Contrary to expectations, all networks were predominantly intransitive. These findings encourage us to rethink how we conceive of and categorize the mechanisms driving biodiversity in plant systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Malyon D Bimler
- School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Daniel B Stouffer
- Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
| | - Trace E Martyn
- Eastern Oregon Agriculture Research Center-Union Experiment Station, Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
- Eastern Oregon Agriculture and Natural Resource Program, Oregon State University, Oregon, USA
| | - Margaret M Mayfield
- School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
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15
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Deng J, Taylor W, Levin SA, Saavedra S. On the limits to invasion prediction using coexistence outcomes. J Theor Biol 2024; 577:111674. [PMID: 38008157 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2023] [Revised: 11/01/2023] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/28/2023]
Abstract
The dynamics of ecological communities in nature are typically characterized by probabilistic processes involving invasion dynamics. Because of technical challenges, however, the majority of theoretical and experimental studies have focused on coexistence dynamics. Therefore, it has become central to understand the extent to which coexistence outcomes can be used to predict analogous invasion outcomes relevant to systems in nature. Here, we study the limits to this predictability under a geometric and probabilistic Lotka-Volterra framework. We show that while individual survival probability in coexistence dynamics can be fairly closely translated into invader colonization probability in invasion dynamics, the translation is less precise between community persistence and community augmentation, and worse between exclusion probability and replacement probability. These results provide a guiding and testable theoretical framework regarding the translatability of outcomes between coexistence and invasion outcomes when communities are represented by Lotka-Volterra dynamics under environmental uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Deng
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Washington Taylor
- Center for Theoretical Physics, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Simon A Levin
- Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Rd, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
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16
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Lepori VJ, Loeuille N, Rohr RP. Robustness versus productivity during evolutionary community assembly: short-term synergies and long-term trade-offs. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20232495. [PMID: 38196359 PMCID: PMC10777152 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.2495] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/11/2024] Open
Abstract
The realization that evolutionary feedbacks need to be considered to fully grasp ecological dynamics has sparked interest in the effect of evolution on community properties like coexistence and productivity. However, little is known about the evolution of community robustness and productivity along diversification processes in species-rich systems. We leverage the recent structural approach to coexistence together with adaptive dynamics to study such properties and their relationships in a general trait-based model of competition on a niche axis. We show that the effects of coevolution on coexistence are two-fold and contrasting depending on the time scale considered. In the short term, evolution of niche differentiation strengthens coexistence, while long-term diversification leads to niche packing and decreased robustness. Moreover, we find that coevolved communities tend to be on average more robust and more productive than non-evolutionary assemblages. We illustrate how our theoretical predictions echo in observed empirical patterns and the implications of our results for empiricists and applied ecologists. We suggest that some of our results such as the improved robustness of Evolutionarily Stable Communities could be tested experimentally in suitable model systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vasco J. Lepori
- Department of Biology – Ecology and Evolution, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 10, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Nicolas Loeuille
- Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, IEES, Sorbonne Université, UPEC, CNRS, IRD, INRA, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Rudolf P. Rohr
- Department of Biology – Ecology and Evolution, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 10, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
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17
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Zuo Y, Southard M, Xu Q, Zhang G, Skibinski E, Moon N, Gan L, Chen Y, Jiang L. Cell size-dependent species sensitivity to nanoparticles underlies changes in phytoplankton diversity and productivity. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2024; 30:e17049. [PMID: 37988188 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Revised: 09/30/2023] [Accepted: 10/28/2023] [Indexed: 11/23/2023]
Abstract
Nanoparticle pollution has been shown to affect various organisms. However, the effects of nanoparticles on species interactions, and the role of species traits, such as body size, in modulating these effects, are not well-understood. We addressed this issue using competing freshwater phytoplankton species exposed to copper oxide nanoparticles. Increasing nanoparticle concentration resulted in decreased phytoplankton species growth rates and community productivity (both abundance and biomass). Importantly, we consistently found that nanoparticles had greater negative effects on species with smaller cell sizes, such that nanoparticle pollution weakened the competitive dominance of smaller species and promoted species diversity. Moreover, nanoparticles reduced the growth rate differences and competitive ability differences of competing species, while having little effect on species niche differences. Consequently, nanoparticle pollution reduced the selection effect on phytoplankton community abundance, but increased the selection effect on community biomass. Our results suggest cell size as a key functional trait to consider when predicting phytoplankton community structure and ecosystem functioning in the face of increasing nanopollution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiping Zuo
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Michael Southard
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Qianna Xu
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
| | - Guangxing Zhang
- The Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Emily Skibinski
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | | | - Lan Gan
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Yongsheng Chen
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
| | - Lin Jiang
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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18
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Spaak JW, Schreiber SJ. Building modern coexistence theory from the ground up: The role of community assembly. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:1840-1861. [PMID: 37747362 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2023] [Revised: 08/06/2023] [Accepted: 08/12/2023] [Indexed: 09/26/2023]
Abstract
Modern coexistence theory (MCT) is one of the leading methods to understand species coexistence. It uses invasion growth rates-the average, per-capita growth rate of a rare species-to identify when and why species coexist. Despite significant advances in dissecting coexistence mechanisms when coexistence occurs, MCT relies on a 'mutual invasibility' condition designed for two-species communities but poorly defined for species-rich communities. Here, we review well-known issues with this component of MCT and propose a solution based on recent mathematical advances. We propose a clear framework for expanding MCT to species-rich communities and for understanding invasion resistance as well as coexistence, especially for communities that could not be analysed with MCT so far. Using two data-driven community models from the literature, we illustrate the utility of our framework and highlight the opportunities for bridging the fields of community assembly and species coexistence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jurg W Spaak
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Institute for Environmental Sciences, Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Univerität Kaiserslautern-Landau, Landau, Germany
| | - Sebastian J Schreiber
- Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, California, USA
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19
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Flores-Arguedas H, Antolin-Camarena O, Saavedra S, Angulo MT. Assembly archetypes in ecological communities. J R Soc Interface 2023; 20:20230349. [PMID: 38016640 PMCID: PMC10684342 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2023.0349] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
An instrumental discovery in comparative and developmental biology is the existence of assembly archetypes that synthesize the vast diversity of organisms' body plans-from legs and wings to human arms-into simple, interpretable and general design principles. Here, we combine a novel mathematical formalism based on category theory with experimental data to show that similar 'assembly archetypes' exist at the larger organization scale of ecological communities when assembling a species pool across diverse environmental contexts, particularly when species interactions are highly structured. We applied our formalism to clinical data discovering two assembly archetypes that differentiate between healthy and unhealthy human gut microbiota. The concept of assembly archetypes and the methods to synthesize them can pave the way to discovering the general assembly principles of the ecological communities we observe in nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Flores-Arguedas
- Institute of Mathematics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla, Queretaro, Mexico
| | - Omar Antolin-Camarena
- Institute of Mathematics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
| | - Marco Tulio Angulo
- Institute of Mathematics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla, Queretaro, Mexico
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20
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Allen-Perkins A, García-Callejas D, Bartomeus I, Godoy O. Structural asymmetry in biotic interactions as a tool to understand and predict ecological persistence. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:1647-1662. [PMID: 37515408 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2023] [Revised: 06/29/2023] [Accepted: 07/05/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023]
Abstract
A universal feature of ecological systems is that species do not interact with others with the same sign and strength. Yet, the consequences of this asymmetry in biotic interactions for the short- and long-term persistence of individual species and entire communities remains unclear. Here, we develop a set of metrics to evaluate how asymmetric interactions among species translate to asymmetries in their individual vulnerability to extinction under changing environmental conditions. These metrics, which solve previous limitations of how to independently quantify the size from the shape of the so-called feasibility domain, provide rigorous advances to understand simultaneously why some species and communities present more opportunities to persist than others. We further demonstrate that our shape-related metrics are useful to predict short-term changes in species' relative abundances during 7 years in a Mediterranean grassland. Our approach is designed to be applied to any ecological system regardless of the number of species and type of interactions. With it, we show that is possible to obtain both mechanistic and predictive information on ecological persistence for individual species and entire communities, paving the way for a stronger integration of theoretical and empirical research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alfonso Allen-Perkins
- Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica, Automática y Física Aplicada, ETSIDI, Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - David García-Callejas
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
- Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand
| | | | - Oscar Godoy
- Departamento de Biología, Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar (INMAR), Universidad de Cádiz, Puerto Real, Spain
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21
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Shibasaki S, Mitri S. A spatially structured mathematical model of the gut microbiome reveals factors that increase community stability. iScience 2023; 26:107499. [PMID: 37670791 PMCID: PMC10475486 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107499] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2022] [Revised: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/26/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Given the importance of gut microbial communities for human health, we may want to ensure their stability in terms of species composition and function. Here, we built a mathematical model of a simplified gut composed of two connected patches where species and metabolites can flow from an upstream patch, allowing upstream species to affect downstream species' growth. First, we found that communities in our model are more stable if they assemble through species invasion over time compared to combining a set of species from the start. Second, downstream communities are more stable when species invade the downstream patch less frequently than the upstream patch. Finally, upstream species that have positive effects on downstream species can further increase downstream community stability. Despite it being quite abstract, our model may inform future research on designing more stable microbial communities or increasing the stability of existing ones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shota Shibasaki
- Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Sara Mitri
- Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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22
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De Laender F, Carpentier C, Carletti T, Song C, Rumschlag SL, Mahon MB, Simonin M, Meszéna G, Barabás G. Mean species responses predict effects of environmental change on coexistence. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:1535-1547. [PMID: 37337910 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2023] [Revised: 05/21/2023] [Accepted: 05/23/2023] [Indexed: 06/21/2023]
Abstract
Environmental change research is plagued by the curse of dimensionality: the number of communities at risk and the number of environmental drivers are both large. This raises the pressing question if a general understanding of ecological effects is achievable. Here, we show evidence that this is indeed possible. Using theoretical and simulation-based evidence for bi- and tritrophic communities, we show that environmental change effects on coexistence are proportional to mean species responses and depend on how trophic levels on average interact prior to environmental change. We then benchmark our findings using relevant cases of environmental change, showing that means of temperature optima and of species sensitivities to pollution predict concomitant effects on coexistence. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply our theory to the analysis of field data, finding support for effects of land use change on coexistence in natural invertebrate communities.
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Grants
- 2.5020.11, GEQ U.G006.15, 1610468, RW/GEQ2016 et U FNRS-FRFC
- NKFI-123796 Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Offi
- 2.5020.11, GEQ U.G006.15, 1610468, RW/GEQ2016 et U Université de Namur
- NARC fellowsh Université de Namur
- 2.5020.11, GEQ U.G006.15, 1610468, RW/GEQ2016 et U Waalse Gewest
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Affiliation(s)
- Frederik De Laender
- Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, naXys, ILEE, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
| | - Camille Carpentier
- Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, naXys, ILEE, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
| | - Timoteo Carletti
- Department of Mathematics and naXys, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
| | - Chuliang Song
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Samantha L Rumschlag
- Department of Biological Sciences, Environmental Change Initiative, and Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
| | - Michael B Mahon
- Department of Biological Sciences, Environmental Change Initiative, and Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
| | - Marie Simonin
- University of Angers, Institut Agro, INRAE, IRHS, SFR QUASAV, Angers, France
| | - Géza Meszéna
- Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
- Institute of Evolution, Centre for Ecological Research, Budapest, Hungary
| | - György Barabás
- Institute of Evolution, Centre for Ecological Research, Budapest, Hungary
- Division of Ecological and Environmental Modeling, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
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23
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Burkart T, Willeke J, Frey E. Periodic temporal environmental variations induce coexistence in resource competition models. Phys Rev E 2023; 108:034404. [PMID: 37849086 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.108.034404] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 06/13/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023]
Abstract
Natural ecosystems, in particular on the microbial scale, are inhabited by a large number of species. The population size of each species is affected by interactions of individuals with each other and by spatial and temporal changes in environmental conditions, such as resource abundance. Here, we use a generic population dynamics model to study how, and under what conditions, a periodic temporal environmental variation can alter an ecosystem's composition and biodiversity. We demonstrate that using timescale separation allows one to qualitatively predict the long-term population dynamics of interacting species in varying environments. We show that the notion of Tilman's R* rule, a well-known principle that applies for constant environments, can be extended to periodically varying environments if the timescale of environmental changes (e.g., seasonal variations) is much faster than the timescale of population growth (doubling time in bacteria). When these timescales are similar, our analysis shows that a varying environment deters the system from reaching a steady state, and stable coexistence between multiple species becomes possible. Our results posit that biodiversity can in part be attributed to natural environmental variations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tom Burkart
- Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, D-80333 München, Germany
| | - Jan Willeke
- Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, D-80333 München, Germany
| | - Erwin Frey
- Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics and Center for NanoScience, Department of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, D-80333 München, Germany
- Max Planck School Matter to Life, Hofgartenstraße 8, D-80539 München, Germany
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24
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Miller ZR, Allesina S. Habitat Heterogeneity, Environmental Feedbacks, and Species Coexistence across Timescales. Am Nat 2023; 202:E53-E64. [PMID: 37531282 DOI: 10.1086/724821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/04/2023]
Abstract
AbstractClassic ecological theory explains species coexistence in variable environments. While spatial variation is often treated as an intrinsic feature of a landscape, it may be shaped and even generated by the resident community. All species modify their local environment to some extent, driving changes that can feed back to affect the composition and coexistence of the community, potentially over timescales very different from population dynamics. We introduce a simple nested modeling framework for community dynamics in heterogeneous environments, including the possible evolution of heterogeneity over time due to community-environment feedbacks. We use this model to derive analytical conditions for species coexistence in environments where heterogeneity is either fixed or shaped by feedbacks. Among other results, our approach reveals how dispersal and environmental specialization interact to shape realized patterns of habitat association and demonstrates that environmental feedbacks can tune landscape conditions to allow the stable coexistence of any number of species. Our flexible modeling framework helps explain feedback dynamics that arise in a wide range of ecosystems and offers a generic platform for exploring the interplay between species and landscape diversity.
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25
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Spaak JW, Adler PB, Ellner SP. Mechanistic Models of Trophic Interactions: Opportunities for Species Richness and Challenges for Modern Coexistence Theory. Am Nat 2023; 202:E1-E16. [PMID: 37384764 DOI: 10.1086/724660] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2023]
Abstract
AbstractMany potential mechanisms promote species coexistence, but we know little about their relative importance. To compare multiple mechanisms, we modeled a two-trophic planktonic food web based on mechanistic species interactions and empirically measured species traits. We simulated thousands of possible communities under realistic and altered interaction strengths to assess the relative importance of three potential drivers of phytoplankton and zooplankton species richness: resource-mediated coexistence mechanisms, predator-prey interactions, and trait trade-offs. Next, we computed niche and fitness differences of competing zooplankton to obtain a deeper understanding of how these mechanisms determine species richness. We found that predator-prey interactions were the most important driver of phytoplankton and zooplankton species richness and that large zooplankton fitness differences were associated with low species richness, but zooplankton niche differences were not associated with species richness. However, for many communities we could not apply modern coexistence theory to compute niche and fitness differences of zooplankton because of conceptual issues with the invasion growth rates arising from trophic interactions. We therefore need to expand modern coexistence theory to fully investigate multitrophic-level communities.
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Losapio G. Contextualizing the ecology of plant-plant interactions and constructive networks. AOB PLANTS 2023; 15:plad035. [PMID: 37576876 PMCID: PMC10414809 DOI: 10.1093/aobpla/plad035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023]
Abstract
Botanical concepts have traditionally viewed the environment as a static box containing plants. In this box, plants compete with one another and act as passive resource consumers subjected to the environment in a top-down manner. This entails that plants have only negative effects on other plants and have no influence on the environment. By contrast, there is increasing evidence that plants have positive, bottom-up engineering effects and diversity effects on other plants and on the environment. Here, to overcome the limitations of top-down environmental control, antagonistic-only and pairwise interactions, I propose the concept of constructive networks. Constructive networks unify niche construction and network theory recognizing that (i) plants have manifold ecological functions and impacts on their neighbours, and (ii) the environment shapes and is shaped by diverse organisms, primarily plants. Constructive networks integrate both plant-environment and plant-plant interactions in a relational context. They address how plants influence the environment and support or inhibit other plant species by physically, biochemically and ecologically shaping environmental conditions. Constructive networks acknowledge the fact that diverse plants change and create novel environmental conditions and co-produce, share and transform resources, thereby influencing biological communities and the environment in constructive ways. Different interaction types are considered simultaneously in constructive networks. Yet, the main limitation to understanding constructive networks is the identification of plant links. This barrier may be overcome by applying complexity theory and statistical mechanics to comparative data and experimental field botany. Considering multiple interaction types and feedback between plants and the environment may improve our understanding of mechanisms responsible for biodiversity maintenance and help us to better anticipate the response of plant systems to global change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gianalberto Losapio
- Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, UNIL Mouline, 1015, VD, Switzerland
- Department of Biosciences, University of Milan, Via Celoria 26, 20133, Milan, Italy
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Zhao Q, Van den Brink PJ, Xu C, Wang S, Clark AT, Karakoç C, Sugihara G, Widdicombe CE, Atkinson A, Matsuzaki SIS, Shinohara R, He S, Wang YXG, De Laender F. Relationships of temperature and biodiversity with stability of natural aquatic food webs. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3507. [PMID: 37316479 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38977-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2022] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 06/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Temperature and biodiversity changes occur in concert, but their joint effects on ecological stability of natural food webs are unknown. Here, we assess these relationships in 19 planktonic food webs. We estimate stability as structural stability (using the volume contraction rate) and temporal stability (using the temporal variation of species abundances). Warmer temperatures were associated with lower structural and temporal stability, while biodiversity had no consistent effects on either stability property. While species richness was associated with lower structural stability and higher temporal stability, Simpson diversity was associated with higher temporal stability. The responses of structural stability were linked to disproportionate contributions from two trophic groups (predators and consumers), while the responses of temporal stability were linked both to synchrony of all species within the food web and distinctive contributions from three trophic groups (predators, consumers, and producers). Our results suggest that, in natural ecosystems, warmer temperatures can erode ecosystem stability, while biodiversity changes may not have consistent effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qinghua Zhao
- Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
- Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology (URBE), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
- Institute of Complex Systems (naXys), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
- Institute of Life, Earth and the Environment (ILEE), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
| | - Paul J Van den Brink
- Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands
- Wageningen Environmental Research, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Chi Xu
- School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China
| | - Shaopeng Wang
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
| | - Adam T Clark
- Institute of Biology, University of Graz, Holteigasse 6, 8010, Graz, Austria
| | - Canan Karakoç
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
| | - George Sugihara
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | | | - Angus Atkinson
- Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth, PL13DH, UK
| | | | | | - Shuiqing He
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Yingying X G Wang
- Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Frederik De Laender
- Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology (URBE), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
- Institute of Complex Systems (naXys), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
- Institute of Life, Earth and the Environment (ILEE), University of Namur, Namur, Belgium
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28
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Song C, Simmons BI, Fortin MJ, Gonzalez A, Kaiser-Bunbury CN, Saavedra S. Rapid monitoring of ecological persistence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2211288120. [PMID: 37155860 PMCID: PMC10194002 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2211288120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Effective conservation of ecological communities requires accurate and up-to-date information about whether species are persisting or declining to extinction. The persistence of an ecological community is supported by its underlying network of species interactions. While the persistence of the network supporting the whole community is the most relevant scale for conservation, in practice, only small subsets of these networks can be monitored. There is therefore an urgent need to establish links between the small snapshots of data conservationists can collect, and the "big picture" conclusions about ecosystem health demanded by policymakers, scientists, and societies. Here, we show that the persistence of small subnetworks (motifs) in isolation-that is, their persistence when considered separately from the larger network of which they are a part-is a reliable probabilistic indicator of the persistence of the network as a whole. Our methods show that it is easier to detect if an ecological community is not persistent than if it is persistent, allowing for rapid detection of extinction risk in endangered systems. Our results also justify the common practice of predicting ecological persistence from incomplete surveys by simulating the population dynamics of sampled subnetworks. Empirically, we show that our theoretical predictions are supported by data on invaded networks in restored and unrestored areas, even in the presence of environmental variability. Our work suggests that coordinated action to aggregate information from incomplete sampling can provide a means to rapidly assess the persistence of entire ecological networks and the expected success of restoration strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chuliang Song
- Department of Biology, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, McGill University, Montreal, QCH3A 0G4, Canada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ONM5S 3B2, Canada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Benno I. Simmons
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, PenrynTR10 9FE, United Kingdom
| | - Marie-Josée Fortin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ONM5S 3B2, Canada
| | - Andrew Gonzalez
- Department of Biology, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, McGill University, Montreal, QCH3A 0G4, Canada
| | | | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02138
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Blonder BW, Lim MH, Sunberg Z, Tomlin C. Navigation between initial and desired community states using shortcuts. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:516-528. [PMID: 36756862 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14171] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2022] [Accepted: 01/10/2023] [Indexed: 02/10/2023]
Abstract
Ecological management problems often involve navigating from an initial to a desired community state. We ask whether navigation without brute-force additions and deletions of species is possible via: adding/deleting a small number of individuals of a species, changing the environment, and waiting. Navigation can yield direct paths (single sequence of actions) or shortcut paths (multiple sequences of actions with lower cost than a direct path). We ask (1) when is non-brute-force navigation possible?; (2) do shortcuts exist and what are their properties?; and (3) what heuristics predict shortcut existence? Using a state diagram framework applied to several empirical datasets, we show that (1) non-brute-force navigation is only possible between some state pairs, (2) shortcuts exist between many state pairs; and (3) changes in abundance and richness are the strongest predictors of shortcut existence, independent of dataset and algorithm choices. State diagrams thus unveil hidden strategies for manipulating species coexistence and efficiently navigating between states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin W Blonder
- Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Michael H Lim
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Zachary Sunberg
- Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Claire Tomlin
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
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García-Callejas D, Godoy O, Buche L, Hurtado M, Lanuza JB, Allen-Perkins A, Bartomeus I. Non-random interactions within and across guilds shape the potential to coexist in multi-trophic ecological communities. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:831-842. [PMID: 36972904 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Revised: 01/12/2023] [Accepted: 02/05/2023] [Indexed: 03/29/2023]
Abstract
Theory posits that the persistence of species in ecological communities is shaped by their interactions within and across trophic guilds. However, we lack empirical evaluations of how the structure, strength and sign of biotic interactions drive the potential to coexist in diverse multi-trophic communities. Here, we model community feasibility domains, a theoretically informed measure of multi-species coexistence probability, from grassland communities comprising more than 45 species on average from three trophic guilds (plants, pollinators and herbivores). Contrary to our hypothesis, increasing community complexity, measured either as the number of guilds or community richness, did not decrease community feasibility. Rather, we observed that high degrees of species self-regulation and niche partitioning allow for maintaining larger levels of community feasibility and higher species persistence in more diverse communities. Our results show that biotic interactions within and across guilds are not random in nature and both structures significantly contribute to maintaining multi-trophic diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- David García-Callejas
- Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain
- Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, E-11510, Puerto Real, Spain
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, 8140, Christchurch, Private Bag 4800, New Zealand
| | - Oscar Godoy
- Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, E-11510, Puerto Real, Spain
| | - Lisa Buche
- Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, E-11510, Puerto Real, Spain
| | - María Hurtado
- Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain
- Instituto Universitario de Ciencias del Mar (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, E-11510, Puerto Real, Spain
| | - Jose B Lanuza
- Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain
| | - Alfonso Allen-Perkins
- Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain
- Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica, Automática y Física Aplicada, ETSIDI, Technical University of Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain
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Blonder BW, Gaüzère P, Iversen LL, Ke P, Petry WK, Ray CA, Salguero‐Gómez R, Sharpless W, Violle C. Predicting and controlling ecological communities via trait and environment mediated parameterizations of dynamical models. OIKOS 2023. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/17/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin Wong Blonder
- Dept of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Univ. of California Berkeley CA USA
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State Univ. Tempe AZ USA
| | - Pierre Gaüzère
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State Univ. Tempe AZ USA
| | | | - Po‐Ju Ke
- Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton Univ. Princeton NJ USA
- Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan Univ. Taipei Taiwan
| | - William K. Petry
- Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton Univ. Princeton NJ USA
- Dept of Plant & Microbial Biology, North Carolina State Univ. Raleigh NC USA
| | - Courtenay A. Ray
- Dept of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Univ. of California Berkeley CA USA
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State Univ. Tempe AZ USA
| | - Roberto Salguero‐Gómez
- Dept of Zoology, Univ. of Oxford Oxford UK
- Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Rostock Germany
- Center of Excellence in Environmental Decisions, Univ. of Queensland Brisbane Australia
| | - William Sharpless
- Dept of Bioengineering, Univ. of California Berkeley Berkeley CA USA
| | - Cyrille Violle
- CEFE ‐ Univ Montpellier ‐ CNRS – EPHE – IRD Montpellier France
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32
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Granjel RR, Allan E, Godoy O. Nitrogen enrichment and foliar fungal pathogens affect the mechanisms of multispecies plant coexistence. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 237:2332-2346. [PMID: 36527234 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18689] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2021] [Accepted: 11/30/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Changes in resources (e.g. nitrogen) and enemies (e.g. foliar pathogens) are key drivers of plant diversity and composition. However, their effects have not been connected to the niche and fitness differences that determine multispecies coexistence. Here, we combined a structuralist theoretical approach with a detailed grassland experiment factorially applying nitrogen addition and foliar fungal pathogen suppression to evaluate the joint effect of nitrogen and pathogens on niche and fitness differences, across a gradient from two to six interacting species. Nitrogen addition and pathogen suppression modified species interaction strengths and intrinsic growth rates, leading to reduced multispecies fitness differences. However, contrary to expected, we also observed that they promote stabilising niche differences. Although these modifications did not substantially alter species richness, they predicted major changes in community composition. Indirect interactions between species explained these community changes in smaller assemblages (three and four species) but lost importance in favour of direct pairwise interactions when more species were involved (five and six). Altogether, our work shows that explicitly considering the number of interacting species is critical for better understanding the direct and indirect processes by which nitrogen enrichment and pathogen communities shape coexistence in grasslands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rodrigo R Granjel
- Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012, Sevilla, Spain
| | - Eric Allan
- Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Alterbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Oscar Godoy
- Departamento de Biología, Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Universidad de Cádiz, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain
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Senthilnathan A, D'Andrea R. Niche theory for positive plant-soil feedbacks. Ecology 2023; 104:e3993. [PMID: 36788733 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3993] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2022] [Revised: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 01/12/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2023]
Abstract
Interactions between plants and the soil are an important ecological process in terrestrial ecosystems as they affect plant community structure: when and where we find different plant species. Those interactions are typically thought of as one-directional: local soil conditions filter through dispersing species to produce a community of locally adapted plants. However, plants can modify local physicochemical soil conditions via their roots and associations with soil microbes. These may in turn affect the local fitness of other plants, making plant-soil interactions bidirectional. In order to understand how they differ from other ecological processes that structure plant communities, we need a theory connecting these individual-level plant-soil feedbacks to community-level patterns. Here, we build this theory with a mathematical model of plant community dynamics in which soil conditioning is explicitly modeled over time and depends on the density of the plants. We analyze this model to describe the long-term composition and spatial distribution of the plant community. Our main result is that positive plant-soil feedbacks will create clustering of species with similar soil preferences. The composition of these clusters is further influenced by niche width and conditioning strength. In contrast with competitive dynamics driven by niche overlap, only species belonging to the same cluster can maintain high relative abundance in the community. Spatial heterogeneity in the form of an environmental gradient generates patches, each representing a single cluster. However, such patchiness is disfavored when species differ in dispersal ability. We show that stronger dispersers cannot take over the habitat as long as an exogenous driver favors soil conditions that benefit the other species. If exogenous drivers supersede soil conditioning by plants, we retrieve classic habitat filtering, where species are selected based on their suitability to the local environment. Overall, we provide a novel mathematical model for positive plant-soil feedback that we use to describe the spatial patterns of plant abundance and traits related to soil preference and conditioning ability.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rafael D'Andrea
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA
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34
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Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems. Sci Rep 2023; 13:1905. [PMID: 36732566 PMCID: PMC9895049 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-28473-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2022] [Accepted: 01/19/2023] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Ecosystems are formed by networks of species and their interactions. Traditional models of such interactions assume a constant interaction strength between a given pair of species. However, there is often significant trait variation among individual organisms even within the same species, causing heterogeneity in their interaction strengths with other species. The consequences of such heterogeneous interactions for the ecosystem have not been studied systematically. As a theoretical exploration, we analyze a simple ecosystem with trophic interactions between two predators and a shared prey, which would exhibit competitive exclusion in models with homogeneous interactions. We consider several scenarios where individuals of the prey species differentiate into subpopulations with different interaction strengths. We show that in all these cases, whether the heterogeneity is inherent, reversible, or adaptive, the ecosystem can stabilize at a new equilibrium where all three species coexist. Moreover, the prey population that has heterogeneous interactions with its predators reaches a higher density than it would without heterogeneity, and can even reach a higher density in the presence of two predators than with just one. Our results suggest that heterogeneity may be a naturally selected feature of ecological interactions that have important consequences for the stability and diversity of ecosystems.
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Guo X, Zuo X, Medina-Roldán E, Guo A, Yue P, Zhao X, Qiao J, Li X, Chen M, Wei C, Yang T, Ke Y, Yu Q. Effects of multi-resource addition on grassland plant productivity and biodiversity along a resource gradient. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 857:159367. [PMID: 36240924 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159367] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2022] [Revised: 09/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
The change of plant biodiversity caused by resource-enhancing global changes has greatly affected grassland productivity. However, it remains unclear how multi-resource enrichment induces the effects of multifaceted biodiversity on grassland productivity under different site resource constraints. We conducted a multiple resource addition (MRA) experiment of water and nutrients at three sites located along a resource gradient in northern China. This allowed us to assess the response of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), species (species richness and plant density), functional (functional richness and community-weighted mean of traits) and phylogenetic (phylogenetic richness) diversity to increasing number of MRA. We used structural equation model (SEM) to examine the direct and indirect effects of MRA and multifaceted biodiversity on ANPP. The combined addition of the four resources increased ANPP at all three sites. But with increasing number of MRA, biodiversity varied at the three sites. At the high resource constraint site, species richness, plant density and leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC) increased. At the medium resource constraint site, plant height and LNC increased, leaf dry matter content (LDMC) decreased. At the low resource constraint site, species, functional and phylogenetic richness decreased, and height increased. The SEM showed that MRA increased ANPP directly at all three sites, and indirectly by increasing plant density at the high constraint site and height at the medium constraint site. Independent of MRA, ANPP was affected by height at the high resource constraint site and LNC at the low resource constraint site. Our results illustrate that multi-resource addition positively affects productivity, while affects biodiversity depending on site resource constraint. The study highlights that site resource constraint conditions need to be taken into consideration to better predict grassland structure and function, particularly under the future multifaceted global change scenarios.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinxin Guo
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
| | - Xiaoan Zuo
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; Key Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Ecology in Cold and Arid Regions, Lanzhou 730000, China.
| | - Eduardo Medina-Roldán
- Institute of BioEconomy-National Research Council (IBE-NRC), 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
| | - Aixia Guo
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China
| | - Ping Yue
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; Key Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Ecology in Cold and Arid Regions, Lanzhou 730000, China.
| | - Xueyong Zhao
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; Key Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Ecology in Cold and Arid Regions, Lanzhou 730000, China.
| | - Jingjuan Qiao
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xiangyun Li
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
| | - Min Chen
- Urat Desert-grassland Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, China; Key Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Ecology in Cold and Arid Regions, Lanzhou 730000, China
| | - Cunzheng Wei
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
| | - Tian Yang
- National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Yuguang Ke
- National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
| | - Qiang Yu
- School of Grassland Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
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36
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Schreiber SJ, Levine JM, Godoy O, Kraft NJB, Hart SP. Does deterministic coexistence theory matter in a finite world? Ecology 2023; 104:e3838. [PMID: 36168209 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3838] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2021] [Revised: 03/12/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Abstract
Contemporary studies of species coexistence are underpinned by deterministic models that assume that competing species have continuous (i.e., noninteger) densities, live in infinitely large landscapes, and coexist over infinite time horizons. By contrast, in nature, species are composed of discrete individuals subject to demographic stochasticity and occur in habitats of finite size where extinctions occur in finite time. One consequence of these discrepancies is that metrics of species' coexistence derived from deterministic theory may be unreliable predictors of the duration of species coexistence in nature. These coexistence metrics include invasion growth rates and niche and fitness differences, which are now commonly applied in theoretical and empirical studies of species coexistence. In this study, we tested the efficacy of deterministic coexistence metrics on the duration of species coexistence in a finite world. We introduce new theoretical and computational methods to estimate coexistence times in stochastic counterparts of classic deterministic models of competition. Importantly, we parameterized this model using experimental field data for 90 pairwise combinations of 18 species of annual plants, allowing us to derive biologically informed estimates of coexistence times for a natural system. Strikingly, we found that for species expected to deterministically coexist, community sizes containing only 10 individuals had predicted coexistence times of more than 1000 years. We also found that invasion growth rates explained 60% of the variation in intrinsic coexistence times, reinforcing their general usefulness in studies of coexistence. However, only by integrating information on both invasion growth rates and species' equilibrium population sizes could most (>99%) of the variation in species coexistence times be explained. This integration was achieved with demographically uncoupled single-species models solely determined by the invasion growth rates and equilibrium population sizes. Moreover, because of a complex relationship between niche overlap/fitness differences and equilibrium population sizes, increasing niche overlap and increasing fitness differences did not always result in decreasing coexistence times, as deterministic theory would predict. Nevertheless, our results tend to support the informed use of deterministic theory for understanding the duration of species' coexistence while highlighting the need to incorporate information on species' equilibrium population sizes in addition to invasion growth rates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian J Schreiber
- Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, California, USA
| | - Jonathan M Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Oscar Godoy
- Departamento de Biología, Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Universidad de Cádiz, Puerto Real, Spain
| | - Nathan J B Kraft
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Simon P Hart
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
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Rohr RP, Loeuille N. Effects of evolution on niche displacement and emergent population properties, a discussion on optimality. OIKOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09472] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Rudolf P. Rohr
- 1Dept of Biology – Ecology and Evolution, Univ. of Fribourg Chemin du Musée 15 Fribourg Switzerland
| | - Nicolas Loeuille
- Sorbonne Univ., UPEC, CNRS, IRD, INRA, Inst. of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, IEES Paris France
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38
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Spaak JW, Ke P, Letten AD, De Laender F. Different measures of niche and fitness differences tell different tales. OIKOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09573] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jurg W. Spaak
- Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell Univ. Ithaca NY USA
| | - Po‐Ju Ke
- Inst. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan Univ. Taipei Taiwan
- Dept of Ecology&Evolutionary Biology, Princeton Univ. Princeton NJ USA
| | - Andrew D. Letten
- School of Biological Sciences, Univ. of Queensland Brisbane QLD Australia
| | - Frederik De Laender
- Univ. of Namur Namur Belgium
- Inst. of Life‐Earth‐Environment, Namur Center for Complex Systems Namur Belgium
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39
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McGuire RM, Hayashi KT, Yan X, Caritá Vaz M, Cinoğlu D, Cowen MC, Martínez‐Blancas A, Sullivan LL, Vazquez‐Morales S, Kandlikar GS. EcoEvoApps: Interactive apps for theoretical models in ecology and evolutionary biology. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9556. [PMID: 36479028 PMCID: PMC9719042 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9556] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2022] [Revised: 11/03/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The integration of theory and data drives progress in science, but a persistent barrier to such integration in ecology and evolutionary biology is that theory is often developed and expressed in the form of mathematical models that can feel daunting and inaccessible for students and empiricists with variable quantitative training and attitudes towards math. A promising way to make mathematical models more approachable is to embed them into interactive tools with which one can visually evaluate model structures and directly explore model outcomes through simulation. To promote such interactive learning of quantitative models, we developed EcoEvoApps, a collection of free, open-source, and multilingual R/Shiny apps that include model overviews, interactive model simulations, and code to implement these models directly in R. The package currently focuses on canonical models of population dynamics, species interactions, and landscape ecology. These apps help illustrate fundamental results from theoretical ecology and can serve as valuable teaching tools in classroom settings. We present data from student surveys which show that students rate these apps as useful learning tools, and that using interactive apps leads to substantial gains in students' interest and confidence in working with mathematical models. This points to the potential for interactive activities to make theoretical models more accessible to a wider audience, and thus facilitate the feedback between theory and data across ecology and evolutionary biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosa M. McGuire
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Kenji T. Hayashi
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Xinyi Yan
- Department of Integrative BiologyUniversity of Texas at AustinAustinTexasUSA
| | - Marcel Caritá Vaz
- Institute for Environmental Science and SustainabilityWilkes UniversityWilkes‐BarrePennsylvaniaUSA
| | - Damla Cinoğlu
- Department of Integrative BiologyUniversity of Texas at AustinAustinTexasUSA
| | - Madeline C. Cowen
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Alejandra Martínez‐Blancas
- Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de CienciasUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de MexicoCiudad de MéxicoMexico
| | - Lauren L. Sullivan
- Division of Biological SciencesUniversity of MissouriColumbiaMissouriUSA
- Department of Plant BiologyKellogg Biological StationMichigan State UniversityEast LansingMichiganUSA
| | | | - Gaurav S. Kandlikar
- Division of Biological SciencesUniversity of MissouriColumbiaMissouriUSA
- Division of Plant Sciences & TechnologyUniversity of MissouriColumbiaMissouriUSA
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40
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Ray CA, Kapas RE, Opedal ØH, Blonder BW. Linking microenvironment modification to species interactions and demography in an alpine plant community. OIKOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Courtenay A. Ray
- Dept of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, Univ. of California Berkeley CA USA
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State Univ. Tempe AZ USA
| | | | | | - Benjamin W. Blonder
- Dept of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, Univ. of California Berkeley CA USA
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State Univ. Tempe AZ USA
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41
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Van Dyke MN, Levine JM, Kraft NJB. Small rainfall changes drive substantial changes in plant coexistence. Nature 2022; 611:507-511. [PMID: 36323782 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05391-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2021] [Accepted: 09/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Although precipitation patterns have long been known to shape plant distributions1, the effect of changing climate on the interactions of species and therefore community composition is far less understood2,3. Here, we explored how changes in precipitation alter competitive dynamics via direct effects on individual species, as well as by the changing strength of competitive interactions between species, using an annual grassland community in California. We grew plants under ambient and reduced precipitation in the field to parameterize a competition model4 with which we quantified the stabilizing niche and fitness differences that determine species coexistence in each rainfall regime. We show that reduced precipitation had little direct effect on species grown alone, but it qualitatively shifted predicted competitive outcomes for 10 of 15 species pairs. In addition, species pairs that were functionally more similar were less likely to experience altered outcomes, indicating that functionally diverse communities may be most threatened by changing interactions. Our results highlight how important it is to account for changes to species interactions when predicting species and community response to global change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mary N Van Dyke
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
| | - Jonathan M Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Nathan J B Kraft
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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42
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Gibbs T, Levin SA, Levine JM. Coexistence in diverse communities with higher-order interactions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2205063119. [PMID: 36252042 PMCID: PMC9618036 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2205063119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2022] [Accepted: 09/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
A central assumption in most ecological models is that the interactions in a community operate only between pairs of species. However, two species may interactively affect the growth of a focal species. Although interactions among three or more species, called higher-order interactions, have the potential to modify our theoretical understanding of coexistence, ecologists lack clear expectations for how these interactions shape community structure. Here we analytically predict and numerically confirm how the variability and strength of higher-order interactions affect species coexistence. We found that as higher-order interaction strengths became more variable across species, fewer species could coexist, echoing the behavior of pairwise models. If interspecific higher-order interactions became too harmful relative to self-regulation, coexistence in diverse communities was destabilized, but coexistence was also lost when these interactions were too weak and mutualistic higher-order effects became prevalent. This behavior depended on the functional form of the interactions as the destabilizing effects of the mutualistic higher-order interactions were ameliorated when their strength saturated with species' densities. Last, we showed that more species-rich communities structured by higher-order interactions lose species more readily than their species-poor counterparts, generalizing classic results for community stability. Our work provides needed theoretical expectations for how higher-order interactions impact species coexistence in diverse communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Theo Gibbs
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Simon A. Levin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Jonathan M. Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
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43
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Aoyama L, Shoemaker LG, Gilbert B, Collinge SK, Faist AM, Shackelford N, Temperton VM, Barabás G, Larios L, Ladouceur E, Godoy O, Bowler C, Hallett LM. Application of modern coexistence theory to rare plant restoration provides early indication of restoration trajectories. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 32:e2649. [PMID: 35560687 PMCID: PMC9787931 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2649] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2021] [Revised: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 03/23/2022] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Restoration ecology commonly seeks to re-establish species of interest in degraded habitats. Despite a rich understanding of how succession influences re-establishment, there are several outstanding questions that remain unaddressed: are short-term abundances sufficient to determine long-term re-establishment success, and what factors contribute to unpredictable restorations outcomes? In other words, when restoration fails, is it because the restored habitat is substandard, because of strong competition with invasive species, or alternatively due to changing environmental conditions that would equally impact established populations? Here, we re-purpose tools developed from modern coexistence theory to address these questions, and apply them to an effort to restore the endangered Contra Costa goldfields (Lasthenia conjugens) in constructed ("restored") California vernal pools. Using 16 years of data, we construct a population model of L. conjugens, a species of conservation concern due primarily to habitat loss and invasion of exotic grasses. We show that initial, short-term appearances of restoration success from population abundances is misleading, as year-to-year fluctuations cause long-term population growth rates to fall below zero. The failure of constructed pools is driven by lower maximum growth rates compared with reference ("natural") pools, coupled with a stronger negative sensitivity to annual fluctuations in abiotic conditions that yield decreased maximum growth rates. Nonetheless, our modeling shows that fluctuations in competition (mainly with exotic grasses) benefit L. conjugens through periods of competitive release, especially in constructed pools of intermediate pool depth. We therefore show how reductions in invasives and seed addition in pools of particular depths could change the outcome of restoration for L. conjugens. By applying a largely theoretical framework to the urgent goal of ecological restoration, our study provides a blueprint for predicting restoration success, and identifies future actions to reverse species loss.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lina Aoyama
- Biology DepartmentUniversity of OregonEugeneOregonUSA
- Environmental Studies ProgramUniversity of OregonEugeneOregonUSA
| | | | - Benjamin Gilbert
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of TorontoTorontoOntarioCanada
| | | | - Akasha M. Faist
- Department of Animal and Range SciencesNew Mexico State UniversityLas CrucesNew MexicoUSA
| | - Nancy Shackelford
- School of Environmental StudiesUniversity of VictoriaVictoriaBritish ColumbiaCanada
- Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of Colorado BoulderBoulderColoradoUSA
| | | | - György Barabás
- Division of Theoretical Biology, Department of IFMLinköping UniversityLinköpingSweden
- MTA‐ELTE Theoretical Biology and Evolutionary Ecology Research GroupBudapestHungary
| | - Loralee Larios
- Department of Botany and Plant SciencesUniversity of California RiversideRiversideCaliforniaUSA
| | - Emma Ladouceur
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Leipzig‐Halle‐JenaLeipzigGermany
- Department of Physiological DiversityHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research –UFZLeipzigGermany
| | - Oscar Godoy
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Dpto de BiologíaPuerto RealSpain
| | - Catherine Bowler
- School of Biological Sciences University of QueenslandBrisbaneQueenslandAustralia
| | - Lauren M. Hallett
- Biology DepartmentUniversity of OregonEugeneOregonUSA
- Environmental Studies ProgramUniversity of OregonEugeneOregonUSA
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44
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Yamamichi M, Gibbs T, Levine JM. Integrating eco-evolutionary dynamics and modern coexistence theory. Ecol Lett 2022; 25:2091-2106. [PMID: 35962483 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14078] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2022] [Revised: 06/13/2022] [Accepted: 06/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Community ecology typically assumes that competitive exclusion and species coexistence are unaffected by evolution on the time scale of ecological dynamics. However, recent studies suggest that rapid evolution operating concurrently with competition may enable species coexistence. Such findings necessitate general theory that incorporates the coexistence contributions of eco-evolutionary processes in parallel with purely ecological mechanisms and provides metrics for quantifying the role of evolution in shaping competitive outcomes in both modelling and empirical contexts. To foster the development of such theory, here we extend the interpretation of the two principal metrics of modern coexistence theory-niche and competitive ability differences-to systems where competitors evolve. We define eco-evolutionary versions of these metrics by considering how invading and resident species adapt to conspecific and heterospecific competitors. We show that the eco-evolutionary niche and competitive ability differences are sums of ecological and evolutionary processes, and that they accurately predict the potential for stable coexistence in previous theoretical studies of eco-evolutionary dynamics. Finally, we show how this theory frames recent empirical assessments of rapid evolution effects on species coexistence, and how empirical work and theory on species coexistence and eco-evolutionary dynamics can be further integrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Masato Yamamichi
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.,Department of International Health and Medical Anthropology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
| | - Theo Gibbs
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Jonathan M Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
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45
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Deng J, Taylor W, Saavedra S. Understanding the impact of third-party species on pairwise coexistence. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010630. [PMID: 36279302 PMCID: PMC9632822 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2022] [Revised: 11/03/2022] [Accepted: 10/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
The persistence of virtually every single species depends on both the presence of other species and the specific environmental conditions in a given location. Because in natural settings many of these conditions are unknown, research has been centered on finding the fraction of possible conditions (probability) leading to species coexistence. The focus has been on the persistence probability of an entire multispecies community (formed of either two or more species). However, the methodological and philosophical question has always been whether we can observe the entire community and, if not, what the conditions are under which an observed subset of the community can persist as part of a larger multispecies system. Here, we derive long-term (using analytical calculations) and short-term (using simulations and experimental data) system-level indicators of the effect of third-party species on the coexistence probability of a pair (or subset) of species under unknown environmental conditions. We demonstrate that the fraction of conditions incompatible with the possible coexistence of a pair of species tends to become vanishingly small within systems of increasing numbers of species. Yet, the probability of pairwise coexistence in isolation remains approximately the expected probability of pairwise coexistence in more diverse assemblages. In addition, we found that when third-party species tend to reduce (resp. increase) the coexistence probability of a pair, they tend to exhibit slower (resp. faster) rates of competitive exclusion. Long-term and short-term effects of the remaining third-party species on all possible specific pairs in a system are not equally distributed, but these differences can be mapped and anticipated under environmental uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Deng
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Washington Taylor
- Center for Theoretical Physics, MIT, Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
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46
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Luo M, Wang S, Saavedra S, Ebert D, Altermatt F. Multispecies coexistence in fragmented landscapes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2201503119. [PMID: 36067285 PMCID: PMC9477233 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2201503119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2022] [Accepted: 08/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Spatial dynamics have long been recognized as an important driver of biodiversity. However, our understanding of species' coexistence under realistic landscape configurations has been limited by lack of adequate analytical tools. To fill this gap, we develop a spatially explicit metacommunity model of multiple competing species and derive analytical criteria for their coexistence in fragmented heterogeneous landscapes. Specifically, we propose measures of niche and fitness differences for metacommunities, which clarify how spatial dynamics and habitat configuration interact with local competition to determine coexistence of species. We parameterize our model with a Bayesian approach using a 36-y time-series dataset of three Daphnia species in a rockpool metacommunity covering >500 patches. Our results illustrate the emergence of interspecific variation in extinction and recolonization processes, including their dependencies on habitat size and environmental temperature. We find that such interspecific variation contributes to the coexistence of Daphnia species by reducing fitness differences and increasing niche differences. Additionally, our parameterized model allows separating the effects of habitat destruction and temperature change on species extinction. By integrating coexistence theory and metacommunity theory, our study provides platforms to increase our understanding of species' coexistence in fragmented heterogeneous landscapes and the response of biodiversity to environmental changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingyu Luo
- Institute of Ecology, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
| | - Shaopeng Wang
- Institute of Ecology, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
| | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
| | - Dieter Ebert
- Department of Environmental Sciences, Zoology, University of Basel, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland
- Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, 10900 Hanko, Finland
| | - Florian Altermatt
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
- Department of Aquatic Ecology, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
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47
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Gibbs T, Zhang Y, Miller ZR, O’Dwyer JP. Stability criteria for the consumption and exchange of essential resources. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010521. [PMID: 36074781 PMCID: PMC9488833 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010521] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2021] [Revised: 09/20/2022] [Accepted: 08/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Models of consumer effects on a shared resource environment have helped clarify how the interplay of consumer traits and resource supply impact stable coexistence. Recent models generalize this picture to include the exchange of resources alongside resource competition. These models exemplify the fact that although consumers shape the resource environment, the outcome of consumer interactions is context-dependent: such models can have either stable or unstable equilibria, depending on the resource supply. However, these recent models focus on a simplified version of microbial metabolism where the depletion of resources always leads to consumer growth. Here, we model an arbitrarily large system of consumers governed by Liebig’s law, where species require and deplete multiple resources, but each consumer’s growth rate is only limited by a single one of these resources. Resources that are taken up but not incorporated into new biomass are leaked back into the environment, possibly transformed by intracellular reactions, thereby tying the mismatch between depletion and growth to cross-feeding. For this set of dynamics, we show that feasible equilibria can be either stable or unstable, again depending on the resource environment. We identify special consumption and production networks which protect the community from instability when resources are scarce. Using simulations, we demonstrate that the qualitative stability patterns derived analytically apply to a broader class of network structures and resource inflow profiles, including cases where multiple species coexist on only one externally supplied resource. Our stability criteria bear some resemblance to classic stability results for pairwise interactions, but also demonstrate how environmental context can shape coexistence patterns when resource limitation and exchange are modeled directly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Theo Gibbs
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Yifan Zhang
- Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Zachary R. Miller
- Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - James P. O’Dwyer
- Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
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48
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Liu Y, Li X, Li Y, Li J, Zhu S. Gut microbiomes of cyprinid fish exhibit host-species symbiosis along gut trait and diet. Front Microbiol 2022; 13:936601. [PMID: 36016786 PMCID: PMC9396210 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.936601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2022] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Teleost omnivorous fish that coexist partially sharing resources are likely to modify their gut traits and microbiome as a feedback mechanism between ecological processes and evolution. However, we do not understand how the core gut microbiome supports the metabolic capacity of the host and regulates digestive functions in specialized omnivorous fish gut traits. Therefore, we evaluated the gut microbiome of eight omnivorous fish from a single family (i.e., Cyprinidae) in the current study. We examined the correlation between host phylogeny, diet composition, and intestinal morphological traits related to the intestinal microbiome. The results indicated that cyprinid fish with similar relative gut lengths had considerable gut microbiome similarity. Notably, the SL (short relative gut length) group, as zoobenthos and zooplankton specialists, was abundant in Proteobacteria and was less abundant in Firmicutes than in the ML (medium relative gut length) and LL (long relative gut length) groups. These fish could extract nutrients from aquatic plants and algae. Additionally, we found the relative abundance of Clostridium and Romboutsia to be positively correlated with host relative gut length but negatively correlated with the relative abundance of Cetobacterium, Plesiomonas, Bacteroides, and Lactobacillus, and host-relative gut length. We also show a positive linear relationship between host gut microbiome carbohydrate metabolism and relative gut length, while the amino acid and lipid metabolism of the gut microbiome was negatively correlated with host-relative gut length. In addition, omnivorous species competing for resources improve their ecological adaptability through the specialization of gut length, which is closely related to variation in the synergy of the gut microbiome. Above all, specialized gut microbiota and associated gut morphologies enable fish to variably tolerate resource fluctuation and improve the utilization efficiency of nutrient extraction from challenging food resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yaqiu Liu
- Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, China
- Guangzhou Scientific Observing and Experimental Station of National Fisheries Resources and Environment, Guangzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Animal Immune Technology of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xinhui Li
- Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuefei Li
- Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, China
- Guangzhou Scientific Observing and Experimental Station of National Fisheries Resources and Environment, Guangzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Animal Immune Technology of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jie Li
- Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, China
- Guangzhou Scientific Observing and Experimental Station of National Fisheries Resources and Environment, Guangzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Animal Immune Technology of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China
| | - Shuli Zhu
- Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, China
- Guangzhou Scientific Observing and Experimental Station of National Fisheries Resources and Environment, Guangzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Animal Immune Technology of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China
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49
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Sieben AJ, Mihaljevic JR, Shoemaker LG. Quantifying mechanisms of coexistence in disease ecology. Ecology 2022; 103:e3819. [PMID: 35855596 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3819] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2021] [Revised: 03/22/2022] [Accepted: 04/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Pathogen coexistence depends on ecological processes operating at both within and between-host scales, making it difficult to quantify which processes may promote or prevent coexistence. Here, we propose that adapting modern coexistence theory-traditionally applied in plant communities-to pathogen systems provides an exciting approach for examining mechanisms of coexistence operating across different spatial scales. We first overview modern coexistence theory and its mechanistic decomposition; we subsequently adapt the framework to quantify how spatial variation in pathogen density, host resources and immunity, and their interaction may promote pathogen coexistence. We apply this derivation to an example two pathogen, multi-scale model comparing two scenarios with generalist and strain-specific immunity: one with demographic equivalency among pathogens and one with demographic trade-offs among pathogens. We then show how host-pathogen feedbacks generate spatial heterogeneity that promote pathogen coexistence and decompose those mechanisms to quantify how each spatial heterogeneity contributes to that coexistence. Specifically, coexistence of demographically equivalent pathogens occurs due to spatial variation in host resources, immune responses, and pathogen aggregation. With a competition-colonization trade-off, the superior colonizer requires spatial heterogeneity to coexist, whereas the superior competitor does not. Finally, we suggest ways forward for linking theory and empirical tests of coexistence in disease systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew J Sieben
- Department of Botany, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY.,School of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
| | - Joseph R Mihaljevic
- School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
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50
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Johnson CA, Dutt P, Levine JM. Competition for pollinators destabilizes plant coexistence. Nature 2022; 607:721-725. [PMID: 35859181 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04973-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2021] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Mounting concern over the global decline of pollinators has fuelled calls for investigating their role in maintaining plant diversity1,2. Theory predicts that competition for pollinators can stabilize interactions between plant species by providing opportunities for niche differentiation3, while at the same time can drive competitive imbalances that favour exclusion4. Here we empirically tested these contrasting effects by manipulating competition for pollinators in a way that predicts its long-term implications for plant coexistence. We subjected annual plant individuals situated across experimentally imposed gradients in neighbour density to either ambient insect pollination or a pollen supplementation treatment alleviating competition for pollinators. The vital rates of these individuals informed plant population dynamic models predicting the key theoretical metrics of species coexistence. Competition for pollinators generally destabilized the interactions between plant species, reducing the proportion of pairs expected to coexist. Interactions with pollinators also influenced the competitive imbalances between plant species, effects that are expected to strengthen with pollinator decline, potentially disrupting plant coexistence. Indeed, results from an experiment simulating pollinator decline showed that plant species experiencing greater reductions in floral visitation also suffered greater declines in population growth rate. Our results reveal that competition for pollinators may weaken plant coexistence by destabilizing interactions and contributing to competitive imbalances, information critical for interpreting the impacts of pollinator decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher A Johnson
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. .,Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
| | - Proneet Dutt
- Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Jonathan M Levine
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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