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Granzotti RV, Cassemiro FAS, Agostinho AA, Bini LM. Drivers of interspecific synchrony and diversity-stability relationships in floodplain fish communities. J Anim Ecol 2024. [PMID: 39354751 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.14190] [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: 07/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/04/2024] [Indexed: 10/03/2024]
Abstract
Diversity and interspecific synchrony are among the main drivers behind the temporal stability of community abundance. Diversity can increase stability through the portfolio effect, while higher synchrony generally decreases stability. In turn, species interactions and similar responses to environmental variation are considered the main factors underlying the strength of interspecific synchrony, despite the challenges in determining their relative roles. The analysis of the relationship between interspecific synchrony and the trait (or phylogenetic) distance between species can increase the robustness of inferences about these factors. Here, we used pairwise interspecific and community-wide analyses to investigate, respectively, the drivers of interspecific synchrony and the influence of trait and phylogenetic diversity on the stability of fish communities. For that, we used 18 years of fish abundance data from the Upper Paraná River floodplain. At the interspecific level, we used quantile regressions to test within-guild relationships between interspecific synchrony and trait and phylogenetic distance between species. At the community level, we tested the relationships between community-wide synchrony, stability, and (trait and phylogenetic) diversity. We found that interspecific synchrony decreased with trait and phylogenetic distances. In the community-level analysis, we found that more synchronous fish communities were less stable, but the relationship between diversity and stability was in general weak. At the interspecific level, our study highlights the role of similar responses to environmental variation in driving species' temporal dynamics. At the community level, the strength of the relationships between trait or phylogenetic diversity and community stability depended on the feeding guild. On the other hand, we found strong relationships between synchrony and stability. These results suggest that increased synchrony levels in response to regional environmental changes could decrease the stability of fish communities in this floodplain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rafaela V Granzotti
- Programa DTI/CNPq, Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Ecologia, Evolução e Conservação da Biodiversidade (EECBio), Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
| | - Fernanda A S Cassemiro
- Department of Ecology, Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
| | - Angelo A Agostinho
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Maringá, Puerto Rico, Brazil
| | - Luis M Bini
- Department of Ecology, Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
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2
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Wu GL, Fang H, Cui Z, Zhao J. Warming-driven indirect effects on alpine grasslands: short-term gravel encroachment rapidly reshapes community structure and reduces community stability. Oecologia 2023:10.1007/s00442-023-05393-y. [PMID: 37258693 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-023-05393-y] [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: 09/15/2022] [Accepted: 05/23/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
The community stability is the main ability to resist and be resilient to climate changes. In a world of climate warming and melting glaciers, alpine gravel encroachment was occurring universally and threatening hillside grassland ecosystem. Gravel encroachment caused by climate warming and glacial melting may alter community structure and community stability in alpine meadow. Yet, the effects of climate warming-induced gravel encroachment on grassland communities are unknown. Here, a 1-year short-term field experiment was conducted to explore the early stage drive process of gravel encroachment on community structure and stability at four different gravel encroachment levels 0%, 30%, 60%, and 90% gravel coverage at an alpine meadow on the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau, by analyzing the changes of dominant species stability and species asynchrony to the simulated gravel encroachment processes. Gravel encroachment rapidly changed the species composition and species ranking of alpine meadow plant community in a short period of time. Specifically, community stability of alpine meadow decreased by 61.78-79.48%, which may be due to the reduced dominant species stability and species asynchrony. Species asynchrony and dominant species stability were reduced by 2.65-17.39% and 46.51-67.97%, respectively. The results of this study demonstrate that gravel encroachment presents a severe negative impact on community structure and stability of alpine meadow in the short term, the longer term and comprehensive study should be conducted to accurate prediction of global warming-induced indirect effects on alpine grassland ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gao-Lin Wu
- State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A & F University, No. 26, Xinong Road, Yangling, 712100, China.
- Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resource, Yangling, 712100, China.
- CAS Center for Excellence in Quaternary Science and Global Change, Xi'an, 710061, China.
| | - Hui Fang
- State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A & F University, No. 26, Xinong Road, Yangling, 712100, China
| | - Zeng Cui
- Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resource, Yangling, 712100, China
| | - Jingxue Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China
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3
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Li X, Zuo X, Zhao X, Wang S, Yue P, Xu C, Yu Q, Medina-Roldán E. Extreme drought does not alter the stability of aboveground net primary productivity but decreases the stability of belowground net primary productivity in a desert steppe of northern China. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL 2023; 30:24319-24328. [PMID: 36334210 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-23938-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Extreme droughts strongly impact grassland ecology, both functionally and structurally. However, a comprehensive understanding of the drought impacts on the ecosystem stability is critical for its sustainable development under changing climate. We experimentally report the impact of extreme drought on the temporal stability of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and belowground net primary productivity (BNPP) in a desert steppe of northern China. The relative importance evaluation of extreme drought, soil properties, species asynchrony, taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to measure the temporal ANPP and BNPP stabilities. Our findings suggested that extreme drought decreased BNPP stability but did not affect ANPP stability. Extreme drought reduced taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, ANPP, and soil water content but did not affect species asynchrony, functional diversity, or BNPP. Species richness, Shannon-Wiener index, and soil water content were positively correlated with BNPP stability. The SEM results showed a drought-mediated indirect weakening of BNPP stability via modification of species richness. Asynchrony of species unrelated to drought, however, directly affected ANPP stability. The mechanisms underlying the response determination of ANPP and BNPP stability to extreme drought in desert steppe varied notably. Depending on the species asynchrony, ANPP reduced by extreme drought could maintain higher stability. However, extreme drought lowered BNPP stability by altering species richness.
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Affiliation(s)
- 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
- Key Laboratory of Stress Physiology and Ecology in Cold and Arid Region, Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, China
| | - Xiaoan Zuo
- 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 Region, Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
- Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
| | - Xueyong Zhao
- 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 Region, Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, China
- Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou, 730000, China
| | - Shaokun Wang
- 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 Region, Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, China
- Naiman Desertification 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 Region, Gansu Province, Lanzhou, 730000, China
- Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou, 730000, China
| | - Chong Xu
- National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 10008, China
| | - Qiang Yu
- National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 10008, China
| | - Eduardo Medina-Roldán
- Institute of BioEconomy - National Research Council (IBE-CNR), 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
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4
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Salois SL, Gouhier TC, Helmuth B, Choi F, Seabra R, Lima FP. Coastal upwelling generates cryptic temperature refugia. Sci Rep 2022; 12:19313. [PMID: 36369260 PMCID: PMC9652353 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-23717-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding the effects of climate-mediated environmental variation on the distribution of organisms is critically important in an era of global change. We used wavelet analysis to quantify the spatiotemporal (co)variation in daily water temperature for predicting the distribution of cryptic refugia across 16 intertidal sites that were characterized as 'no', 'weak' or 'strong' upwelling and spanned 2000 km of the European Atlantic Coast. Sites experiencing weak upwelling exhibited high synchrony in temperature but low levels of co-variability at monthly to weekly timescales, whereas the opposite was true for sites experiencing strong upwelling. This suggests upwelling generates temporal thermal refugia that can promote organismal performance by both supplying colder water that mitigates thermal stress during hot Summer months and ensuring high levels of fine-scale variation in temperature that reduce the duration of thermal extremes. Additionally, pairwise correlograms based on the Pearson-product moment correlation coefficient and wavelet coherence revealed scale dependent trends in temperature fluctuations across space, with a rapid decay in strong upwelling sites at monthly and weekly timescales. This suggests upwelling also generates spatial thermal refugia that can 'rescue' populations from unfavorable conditions at local and regional scales. Overall, this study highlights the importance of identifying cryptic spatiotemporal refugia that emerge from fine-scale environmental variation to map potential patterns of organismal performance in a rapidly changing world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah L Salois
- Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Road, Nahant, MA, 01908, USA.
- School for Marine Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 836 South Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, MA, 02744, USA.
| | - Tarik C Gouhier
- Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Road, Nahant, MA, 01908, USA
| | - Brian Helmuth
- Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Road, Nahant, MA, 01908, USA
| | - Francis Choi
- Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, 430 Nahant Road, Nahant, MA, 01908, USA
| | - Rui Seabra
- CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Universidade do Porto, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal
- BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal
| | - Fernando P Lima
- CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Universidade do Porto, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal
- BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal
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5
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Castorani MCN, Bell TW, Walter JA, Reuman D, Cavanaugh KC, Sheppard LW. Disturbance and nutrients synchronise kelp forests across scales through interacting Moran effects. Ecol Lett 2022; 25:1854-1868. [PMID: 35771209 PMCID: PMC9541195 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2022] [Revised: 05/20/2022] [Accepted: 06/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Spatial synchrony is a ubiquitous and important feature of population dynamics, but many aspects of this phenomenon are not well understood. In particular, it is largely unknown how multiple environmental drivers interact to determine synchrony via Moran effects, and how these impacts vary across spatial and temporal scales. Using new wavelet statistical techniques, we characterised synchrony in populations of giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera, a widely distributed marine foundation species, and related synchrony to variation in oceanographic conditions across 33 years (1987-2019) and >900 km of coastline in California, USA. We discovered that disturbance (storm-driven waves) and resources (seawater nutrients)-underpinned by climatic variability-act individually and interactively to produce synchrony in giant kelp across geography and timescales. Our findings demonstrate that understanding and predicting synchrony, and thus the regional stability of populations, relies on resolving the synergistic and antagonistic Moran effects of multiple environmental drivers acting on different timescales.
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Affiliation(s)
- Max C. N. Castorani
- Department of Environmental SciencesUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesvilleVirginiaUSA
| | - Tom W. Bell
- Department of Applied Ocean Physics & EngineeringWoods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionWoods HoleMassachusettsUSA
- Earth Research InstituteUniversity of CaliforniaSanta BarbaraCaliforniaUSA
| | - Jonathan A. Walter
- Department of Environmental SciencesUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesvilleVirginiaUSA
| | - Daniel C. Reuman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of KansasLawrenceKansasUSA
- Center for Ecological ResearchUniversity of KansasLawrenceKansasUSA
- Laboratory of PopulationsRockefeller UniversityNew YorkNew YorkUSA
| | - Kyle C. Cavanaugh
- Department of GeographyUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Lawrence W. Sheppard
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of KansasLawrenceKansasUSA
- Marine Biological Association of the United KingdomPlymouthUK
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6
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Barraquand F, Picoche C, Aluome C, Carassou L, Feigné C. Looking for compensation at multiple scales in a wetland bird community. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e8876. [PMID: 35784078 PMCID: PMC9163198 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8876] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2021] [Revised: 11/21/2021] [Accepted: 12/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Compensatory dynamics, during which community composition shifts despite a near-constant total community size, are usually rare: Synchronous dynamics prevail in natural communities. This is a puzzle for ecologists, because of the key role of compensation in explaining the relation between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, most studies so far have considered compensation in either plants or planktonic organisms, so that evidence for the generality of such synchrony is limited. Here, we extend analyses of community-level synchrony to wetland birds. We analyze a 35-year monthly survey of a community where we suspected that compensation might occur due to potential competition and changes in water levels, favoring birds with different habitat preferences. We perform both year-to-year analyses by season, using a compensation/synchrony index, and multiscale analyses using a wavelet-based measure, which allows for both scale- and time-dependence. We analyze synchrony both within and between guilds, with guilds defined either as tightknit phylogenetic groups or as larger functional groups. We find that abundance and biomass compensation are rare, likely due to the synchronizing influence of climate (and other drivers) on birds, even after considering several temporal scales of covariation (during either cold or warm seasons, above or below the annual scale). Negative covariation in abundance at the guild or community level did only appear at the scale of a few months or several years. We also found that synchrony varies with taxonomic and functional scale: The rare cases where compensation appeared consistently in year-to-year analyses were between rather than within functional groups. Our results suggest that abundance compensation may have more potential to emerge between broad functional groups rather than between species, and at relatively long temporal scales (multiple years for vertebrates), above that of the dominant synchronizing driver.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frédéric Barraquand
- Institute of Mathematics of BordeauxUniversity of Bordeaux and CNRSTalenceFrance
- Integrative and Theoretical EcologyLabEx COTEUniversity of BordeauxPessacFrance
| | - Coralie Picoche
- Institute of Mathematics of BordeauxUniversity of Bordeaux and CNRSTalenceFrance
- Integrative and Theoretical EcologyLabEx COTEUniversity of BordeauxPessacFrance
| | - Christelle Aluome
- Integrative and Theoretical EcologyLabEx COTEUniversity of BordeauxPessacFrance
- ISPABordeaux Sciences Agro & INRAEVillenave d'OrnonFrance
| | - Laure Carassou
- Integrative and Theoretical EcologyLabEx COTEUniversity of BordeauxPessacFrance
- EABXINRAECestasFrance
| | - Claude Feigné
- Teich Ornithological ReservePNR Landes GascogneLe TeichFrance
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7
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McGann BN, Strecker AL. Zooplankton recovery from a whole‐lake disturbance: Examining roles of abiotic factors, biotic interactions, and traits. Ecosphere 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3983] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Brian N. McGann
- Department of Environmental Science and Management Portland State University Portland Oregon USA
| | - Angela L. Strecker
- Institute for Watershed Studies Western Washington University Bellingham Washington USA
- Department of Environmental Sciences Western Washington University Bellingham Washington USA
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8
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Shoemaker LG, Hallett LM, Zhao L, Reuman DC, Wang S, Cottingham KL, Hobbs RJ, Castorani MCN, Downing AL, Dudney JC, Fey SB, Gherardi LA, Lany N, Portales-Reyes C, Rypel AL, Sheppard LW, Walter JA, Suding KN. The long and the short of it: Mechanisms of synchronous and compensatory dynamics across temporal scales. Ecology 2022; 103:e3650. [PMID: 35112356 PMCID: PMC9285558 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2021] [Accepted: 09/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Synchronous dynamics (fluctuations that occur in unison) are universal phenomena with widespread implications for ecological stability. Synchronous dynamics can amplify the destabilizing effect of environmental variability on ecosystem functions such as productivity, whereas the inverse, compensatory dynamics, can stabilize function. Here we combine simulation and empirical analyses to elucidate mechanisms that underlie patterns of synchronous versus compensatory dynamics. In both simulated and empirical communities, we show that synchronous and compensatory dynamics are not mutually exclusive but instead can vary by timescale. Our simulations identify multiple mechanisms that can generate timescale‐specific patterns, including different environmental drivers, diverse life histories, dispersal, and non‐stationary dynamics. We find that traditional metrics for quantifying synchronous dynamics are often biased toward long‐term drivers and may miss the importance of short‐term drivers. Our findings indicate key mechanisms to consider when assessing synchronous versus compensatory dynamics and our approach provides a pathway for disentangling these dynamics in natural systems.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lauren M Hallett
- Environmental Studies Program and Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
| | - Lei Zhao
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
| | - Daniel C Reuman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas, Higuchi Hall, 2101 Constant Ave, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
| | - Shaopeng Wang
- Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Kathryn L Cottingham
- Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
| | - Richard J Hobbs
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Max C N Castorani
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
| | - Amy L Downing
- Department of Zoology, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, USA
| | - Joan C Dudney
- Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis, Davis, California, United States.,Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Samuel B Fey
- Department of Biology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon, USA
| | - Laureano A Gherardi
- Global Drylands Center and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
| | - Nina Lany
- Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
| | - Cristina Portales-Reyes
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
| | - Andrew L Rypel
- Department of Fish, Wildlife & Conservation Biology, and Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California, Davis, California, USA
| | - Lawrence W Sheppard
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas, Higuchi Hall, 2101 Constant Ave, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
| | - Jonathan A Walter
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.,Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship, Montclair, New Jersey, United States
| | - Katharine N Suding
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
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9
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Xu Q, Yang X, Yan Y, Wang S, Loreau M, Jiang L. Consistently positive effect of species diversity on ecosystem, but not population, temporal stability. Ecol Lett 2021; 24:2256-2266. [PMID: 34002439 DOI: 10.1111/ele.13777] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2020] [Revised: 03/31/2021] [Accepted: 04/20/2021] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Despite much recent progress, our understanding of diversity-stability relationships across different study systems remains incomplete. In particular, recent theory clarified that within-species population stability and among-species asynchronous population dynamics combine to determine ecosystem temporal stability, but their relative importance in modulating diversity-ecosystem temporal stability relationships in different ecosystems remains unclear. We addressed this issue with a meta-analysis of empirical studies of ecosystem and population temporal stability in relation to species diversity across a range of taxa and ecosystems. We show that ecosystem temporal stability tended to increase with species diversity, regardless of study systems. Increasing diversity promoted asynchrony, which, in turn, contributed to increased ecosystem stability. The positive diversity-ecosystem stability relationship persisted even after accounting for the influences of environmental covariates (e.g., precipitation and nutrient input). By contrast, species diversity tended to reduce population temporal stability in terrestrial systems but increase population temporal stability in aquatic systems, suggesting that asynchronous dynamics among species are essential for stabilizing diverse terrestrial ecosystems. We conclude that there is compelling empirical evidence for a general positive relationship between species diversity and ecosystem-level temporal stability, but the contrasting diversity-population temporal stability relationships between terrestrial and aquatic systems call for more investigations into their underlying mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qianna Xu
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Xian Yang
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.,State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Ying Yan
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 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, Beijing, China
| | - Michel Loreau
- Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, Moulis, France
| | - Lin Jiang
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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10
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Ghosh S, Sheppard LW, Reid PC, Reuman D. A new approach to interspecific synchrony in population ecology using tail association. Ecol Evol 2020; 10:12764-12776. [PMID: 33304492 PMCID: PMC7713959 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6732] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2020] [Revised: 07/29/2020] [Accepted: 08/04/2020] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Standard methods for studying the association between two ecologically important variables provide only a small slice of the information content of the association, but statistical approaches are available that provide comprehensive information. In particular, available approaches can reveal tail associations, that is, accentuated or reduced associations between the more extreme values of variables. We here study the nature and causes of tail associations between phenological or population-density variables of co-located species, and their ecological importance. We employ a simple method of measuring tail associations which we call the partial Spearman correlation. Using multidecadal, multi-species spatiotemporal datasets on aphid first flights and marine phytoplankton population densities, we assess the potential for tail association to illuminate two major topics of study in community ecology: the stability or instability of aggregate community measures such as total community biomass and its relationship with the synchronous or compensatory dynamics of the community's constituent species; and the potential for fluctuations and trends in species phenology to result in trophic mismatches. We find that positively associated fluctuations in the population densities of co-located species commonly show asymmetric tail associations; that is, it is common for two species' densities to be more correlated when large than when small, or vice versa. Ordinary measures of association such as correlation do not take this asymmetry into account. Likewise, positively associated fluctuations in the phenology of co-located species also commonly show asymmetric tail associations. We provide evidence that tail associations between two or more species' population-density or phenology time series can be inherited from mutual tail associations of these quantities with an environmental driver. We argue that our understanding of community dynamics and stability, and of phenologies of interacting species, can be meaningfully improved in future work by taking into account tail associations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shyamolina Ghosh
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological SurveyUniversity of KansasLawrenceKSUSA
| | - Lawrence W. Sheppard
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological SurveyUniversity of KansasLawrenceKSUSA
| | - Philip C. Reid
- Continuous Plankton Recorder SurveyThe Marine Biological Association, The LaboratoryPlymouthUK
- School of Biological & Marine SciencesUniversity of PlymouthPlymouthUK
| | - Daniel Reuman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological SurveyUniversity of KansasLawrenceKSUSA
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11
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Abstract
Desert aquatic systems are widely separated, lack hydrologic connections, and are subject to drought. However, they provide unique settings to investigate distributional patterns of micrometazoans, including rotifers. Thus, to understand rotifer biodiversity we sampled 236 sites across an array of habitats including rock pools, springs, tanks, flowing waters, playas, lakes, and reservoirs in the Chihuahuan Desert of the USA (n = 202) and Mexico (n = 34) over a period of >20 years. This allowed us to calculate diversity indices and examine geographic patterns in rotifer community composition. Of ~1850 recognized rotifer species, we recorded 246 taxa (~13%), with greatest diversity in springs (n = 175), lakes (n = 112), and rock pools (n = 72). Sampling effort was positively related to observed richness in springs, lakes, rivers, and tanks. Nestedness analyses indicated that rotifers in these sites, and most subsets thereof, were highly nested (support from 4 null models). Distance was positively correlated with species composition dissimilarity on small spatial scales. We predicted species richness for unsampled locations using empirical Bayesian kriging. These findings provide a better understanding of regional rotifer diversity in aridlands and provide information on potential biodiversity hotspots for aquatic scientists and resource managers.
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12
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Zhao L, Wang S, Hallett LM, Rypel AL, Sheppard LW, Castorani MCN, Shoemaker LG, Cottingham KL, Suding K, Reuman DC. A new variance ratio metric to detect the timescale of compensatory dynamics. Ecosphere 2020. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Lei Zhao
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming College of Resources and Environmental Sciences China Agricultural University Beijing 100193 China
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological Survey University of Kansas Higuchi Hall 2101 Constant Avenue Lawrence Kansas 66047 USA
| | - Shaopeng Wang
- Department of Ecology College of Urban and Environmental Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education Peking University Beijing 100080 China
| | - Lauren M. Hallett
- Environmental Studies Program and Department of Biology University of Oregon Eugene Oregon 97403 USA
| | - Andrew L. Rypel
- Department of Wildlife, Fish, & Conservation Biology University of California Davis Davis California 95616 USA
| | - Lawrence W. Sheppard
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological Survey University of Kansas Higuchi Hall 2101 Constant Avenue Lawrence Kansas 66047 USA
| | - Max C. N. Castorani
- Department of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia Charlottesville Virginia 22904 USA
| | | | | | - Katharine Suding
- Department of Ecology & Evolution Biology University of Colorado Boulder Colorado 80303 USA
| | - Daniel C. Reuman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Kansas Biological Survey University of Kansas Higuchi Hall 2101 Constant Avenue Lawrence Kansas 66047 USA
- Laboratory of Populations Rockefeller University 1230 York Avenue New York New York 10065 USA
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13
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Siple MC, Essington TE, Barnett LAK, Scheuerell MD. Limited evidence for sardine and anchovy asynchrony: re-examining an old story. Proc Biol Sci 2020; 287:20192781. [PMID: 32156216 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2781] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Asynchronous fluctuations in abundance between species with similar ecological roles can stabilize food webs and support coexistence. Sardine (Sardinops spp.) and anchovy (Engraulis spp.) have long been used as an example of this pattern because low-frequency variation in catches of these species appears to occur out of phase, suggesting that fisheries and generalist predators could be buffered against shifts in productivity of a single species. Using landings data and biomass and recruitment estimates from five regions, we find that species do not have equivalent peak abundances, suggesting that high abundance in one species does not compensate for low abundance in the other. We find that globally there is a stronger pattern of asynchrony in landings compared to biomass, such that landings data have exaggerated the patterns of asynchrony. Finally, we show that power to detect decadal asynchrony is poor, requiring a time series more than twice the length of the period of fluctuation. These results indicate that it is unlikely that the dynamics of these two species are compensatory enough to buffer fisheries and predators from changes in abundance, and that the measurements of asynchrony have largely been a statistical artefact of using short time series and landings data to infer ecology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret C Siple
- School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA
| | - Timothy E Essington
- School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA
| | - Lewis A K Barnett
- Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA
| | - Mark D Scheuerell
- Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2725 Montlake Blvd E, Seattle, WA 98112, USA
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14
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Stochastic disturbance regimes alter patterns of ecosystem variability and recovery. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0229927. [PMID: 32150586 PMCID: PMC7062255 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229927] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2019] [Accepted: 02/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Altered ecosystem variability is an important ecological response to disturbance yet understanding of how various attributes of disturbance regimes affect ecosystem variability is limited. To improve the framework for understanding the disturbance regime attributes that affect ecosystem variability, we examine how the introduction of stochasticity to disturbance parameters (frequency, severity and extent) alters simulated recovery when compared to deterministic outcomes from a spatially explicit simulation model. We also examine the agreement between results from empirical studies and deterministic and stochastic configurations of the model. We find that stochasticity in disturbance frequency and spatial extent leads to the greatest increase in the variance of simulated dynamics, although stochastic severity also contributes to departures from the deterministic case. The incorporation of stochasticity in disturbance attributes improves agreement between empirical and simulated responses, with 71% of empirical responses correctly classified by stochastic configurations of the model as compared to 47% using the purely deterministic model. By comparison, only 2% of empirical responses were correctly classified by the deterministic model and misclassified by stochastic configurations of the model. These results indicate that stochasticity in the attributes of a disturbance regime alters the patterns and classification of ecosystem variability, suggesting altered recovery dynamics. Incorporating stochastic disturbance processes into models may thus be critical for anticipating the ecological resilience of ecosystems.
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15
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Gonzalez A, Germain RM, Srivastava DS, Filotas E, Dee LE, Gravel D, Thompson PL, Isbell F, Wang S, Kéfi S, Montoya J, Zelnik YR, Loreau M. Scaling-up biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research. Ecol Lett 2020; 23:757-776. [PMID: 31997566 PMCID: PMC7497049 DOI: 10.1111/ele.13456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 129] [Impact Index Per Article: 32.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2019] [Revised: 11/18/2019] [Accepted: 12/14/2019] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
A rich body of knowledge links biodiversity to ecosystem functioning (BEF), but it is primarily focused on small scales. We review the current theory and identify six expectations for scale dependence in the BEF relationship: (1) a nonlinear change in the slope of the BEF relationship with spatial scale; (2) a scale‐dependent relationship between ecosystem stability and spatial extent; (3) coexistence within and among sites will result in a positive BEF relationship at larger scales; (4) temporal autocorrelation in environmental variability affects species turnover and thus the change in BEF slope with scale; (5) connectivity in metacommunities generates nonlinear BEF and stability relationships by affecting population synchrony at local and regional scales; (6) spatial scaling in food web structure and diversity will generate scale dependence in ecosystem functioning. We suggest directions for synthesis that combine approaches in metaecosystem and metacommunity ecology and integrate cross‐scale feedbacks. Tests of this theory may combine remote sensing with a generation of networked experiments that assess effects at multiple scales. We also show how anthropogenic land cover change may alter the scaling of the BEF relationship. New research on the role of scale in BEF will guide policy linking the goals of managing biodiversity and ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew Gonzalez
- Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, H3A 1B1, Canada
| | - Rachel M Germain
- Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
| | - Diane S Srivastava
- Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
| | - Elise Filotas
- Center for Forest Research, Département Science et Technologie, Université du Québec, 5800 Saint-Denis, Téluq, Montreal, H2S 3L5, Canada
| | - Laura E Dee
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
| | - Dominique Gravel
- Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 Boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, J1K 2R1, Canada
| | - Patrick L Thompson
- Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, Canada
| | - Forest Isbell
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1479 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA
| | - 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
| | - Sonia Kéfi
- ISEM, CNRS, Univ. Montpellier, IRD, EPHE, Montpellier, France
| | - Jose Montoya
- Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, 2 route du CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
| | - Yuval R Zelnik
- Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, 2 route du CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
| | - Michel Loreau
- Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, 2 route du CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
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16
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Lamy T, Wang S, Renard D, Lafferty KD, Reed DC, Miller RJ. Species insurance trumps spatial insurance in stabilizing biomass of a marine macroalgal metacommunity. Ecology 2019; 100:e02719. [PMID: 31081945 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2719] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2018] [Revised: 12/20/2018] [Accepted: 03/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Because natural ecosystems are complex, it is difficult to predict how their variability scales across space and levels of organization. The species-insurance hypothesis predicts that asynchronous dynamics among species should reduce variability when biomass is aggregated either from local species populations to local multispecies communities, or from metapopulations to metacommunities. Similarly, the spatial-insurance hypothesis predicts that asynchronous spatial dynamics among either local populations or local communities should stabilize metapopulation biomass and metacommunity biomass, respectively. In combination, both species and spatial insurance reduce variation in metacommunity biomass over time, yet these insurances are rarely considered together in natural systems. We partitioned the extent that species insurance and spatial insurance reduced the annual variation in macroalgal biomass in a southern California kelp forest. We quantified variability and synchrony at two levels of organization (population and community) and two spatial scales (local plots and region) and quantified the strength of species and spatial insurance by comparing observed variability and synchrony in aggregate biomass to null models of independent species or spatial dynamics based on cyclic-shift permutation. Spatial insurance was weak, presumably because large-scale oceanographic processes in the study region led to high spatial synchrony at both population- and community-level biomass. Species insurance was stronger due to asynchronous dynamics among the metapopulations of a few common species. In particular, a regional decline in the dominant understory kelp species Pterygophora californica was compensated for by the rise of three subdominant species. These compensatory dynamics were associated with positive values of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, indicating that differential species tolerances to warmer temperature and nutrient-poor conditions may underlie species insurance in this system. Our results illustrate how species insurance can stabilize aggregate community properties in natural ecosystems where environmental conditions vary over broad spatial scales.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Lamy
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
| | - Shaopeng Wang
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Delphine Renard
- Bren School of Environmental Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
| | - Kevin D Lafferty
- Western Ecological Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey at Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
| | - Daniel C Reed
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
| | - Robert J Miller
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
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17
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Klink R, Lepš J, Vermeulen R, Bello F. Functional differences stabilize beetle communities by weakening interspecific temporal synchrony. Ecology 2019; 100:e02748. [DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2748] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2018] [Revised: 02/14/2019] [Accepted: 04/01/2019] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Roel Klink
- Institute of Botany Czech Academy of Sciences Dukelská 135 Třeboň 37982 Czech Republic
- German Institute for Integrative Biodiversity Research iDiv Halle/Jena/Leipzig University of Leipzig Deutscher Platz 5e Leizpig 04103 Germany
- WBBS Foundation Kanaaldijk 36 Loon 9409 TV The Netherlands
| | - Jan Lepš
- Department of Botany University of South Bohemia Na Zlaté Stoce 1 České Budějovice 370 05 Czech Republic
- Institute of Entomology Czech Academy of Sciences Branišovská 31 České Budějovice 370 05 Czech Republic
| | | | - Francesco Bello
- Institute of Botany Czech Academy of Sciences Dukelská 135 Třeboň 37982 Czech Republic
- Department of Botany University of South Bohemia Na Zlaté Stoce 1 České Budějovice 370 05 Czech Republic
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18
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Hopson J, Fox JW. Occasional long distance dispersal increases spatial synchrony of population cycles. J Anim Ecol 2018; 88:154-163. [PMID: 30280379 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12905] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2018] [Accepted: 08/30/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Spatially separated populations of the same species often exhibit correlated fluctuations in abundance, a phenomenon known as spatial synchrony. Dispersal can generate spatial synchrony. In nature, most individuals disperse short distances with a minority dispersing long distances. The effect of occasional long distance dispersal on synchrony is untested, and theoretical predictions are contradictory. Occasional long distance dispersal might either increase both overall synchrony and the spatial scale of synchrony, or reduce them. We conducted a protist microcosm experiment to test whether occasional long distance dispersal increases or decreases overall synchrony and the spatial scale of synchrony. We assembled replicate 15-patch ring metapopulations of the protist predator Euplotes patella and its protist prey Tetrahymena pyriformis. All metapopulations experienced the same dispersal rate, but differed in dispersal distance. Some metapopulations experienced strictly short distance (nearest neighbour) dispersal, others experienced a mixture of short- and long distance dispersal. Occasional long distance dispersal increased overall spatial synchrony and the spatial scale of synchrony for both prey and predators, though the effects were not statistically significant for predators. As predicted by theory, dispersal generated spatial synchrony by entraining the phases of the predator-prey cycles in different patches, a phenomenon known as phase locking. Our results are consistent with theoretical models predicting that occasional long distance dispersal increases spatial synchrony. However, our results also illustrate that the spatial scale of synchrony need not match the spatial scale of the processes generating synchrony. Even strictly short distance dispersal maintained high spatial synchrony for many generations at spatial scales much longer than the dispersal distance, thanks to phase locking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Hopson
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
| | - Jeremy W Fox
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
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19
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Brown BL, Downing AL, Leibold MA. Compensatory dynamics stabilize aggregate community properties in response to multiple types of perturbations. Ecology 2018; 97:2021-2033. [PMID: 27859207 DOI: 10.1890/15-1951.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2015] [Revised: 12/18/2015] [Accepted: 03/03/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Compensatory dynamics are an important suite of mechanisms that can stabilize community and ecosystem attributes in systems subject to environmental fluctuations. However, few experimental investigations of compensatory dynamics have addressed these mechanisms in systems of real-world complexity, and existing evidence relies heavily on correlative analyses, retrospective examination, and experiments in simple systems. We investigated the potential for compensatory dynamics to stabilize plankton communities in plankton mesocosm systems of real-world complexity. We employed four types of perturbations including two types of nutrient pulses, shading, and acidification. To quantify how communities responded to these perturbations, we used a measure of community-wide synchrony combined with spectral analysis that allowed us to assess timescale-specific community dynamics, for example, whether dynamics were synchronous at some timescales but compensatory at others. The 150-d experiment produced 32-point time series of all zooplankton taxa in the mesocosms. We then used those time series to evaluate total zooplankton biomass as an aggregate property and to evaluate community dynamics. For three of our four perturbation types, total zooplankton biomass was significantly less variable in systems with environmental variation than in constant environments. For the same three perturbation types, community-wide synchrony was much lower in fluctuating environments than in the constant environment, particularly at longer timescales (periods ≈ 60 d). Additionally, there were strong negative correlations between population temporal variances and the level of community-wide synchrony. Taken together, these results strongly imply that compensatory interactions between species stabilized total biomass in response to perturbations. Diversity did not differ significantly across either treatments or perturbation types, thus ruling out several classes of mechanisms driven by changes in diversity. We also used several pieces of secondary evidence to evaluate the particular mechanism behind compensatory responses since a wide variety of mechanisms are hypothesized to produce compensatory dynamics. We concluded that fluctuation dependent endogenous cycles that occur as a consequence of consumer-resource interactions in competitive communities were the most likely explanation for the compensatory dynamics observed in our experiment. As with our previous work, scale-dependent dynamics were also a key to understanding compensatory dynamics in these experimental communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bryan L Brown
- Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, 24061, USA
| | - Amy L Downing
- Department of Zoology, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, 43015, USA
| | - Mathew A Leibold
- Integrative Biology, University of Texas, 1 University Station C0930, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA
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20
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Winfree R, Reilly JR, Bartomeus I, Cariveau DP, Williams NM, Gibbs J. Species turnover promotes the importance of bee diversity for crop pollination at regional scales. Science 2018; 359:791-793. [PMID: 29449491 DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 121] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2017] [Accepted: 01/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Ecologists have shown through hundreds of experiments that ecological communities with more species produce higher levels of essential ecosystem functions such as biomass production, nutrient cycling, and pollination, but whether this finding holds in nature (that is, in large-scale and unmanipulated systems) is controversial. This knowledge gap is troubling because ecosystem services have been widely adopted as a justification for global biodiversity conservation. Here we show that, to provide crop pollination in natural systems, the number of bee species must increase by at least one order of magnitude compared with that in field experiments. This increase is driven by species turnover and its interaction with functional dominance, mechanisms that emerge only at large scales. Our results show that maintaining ecosystem services in nature requires many species, including relatively rare ones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachael Winfree
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.
| | - James R Reilly
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
| | - Ignasi Bartomeus
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.,Doñana Biological Station-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Seville, Spain
| | - Daniel P Cariveau
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.,Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Neal M Williams
- Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Jason Gibbs
- Department of Entomology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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21
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Vogt RJ, Frost PC, Nienhuis S, Woolnough DA, Xenopoulos MA. The dual synchronizing influences of precipitation and land use on stream properties in a rapidly urbanizing watershed. Ecosphere 2016. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.1427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Richard J. Vogt
- Department of Biological Sciences Trent University 2140 East Bank Drive Peterborough Ontario K9J 7B8 Canada
| | - Paul C. Frost
- Department of Biological Sciences Trent University 2140 East Bank Drive Peterborough Ontario K9J 7B8 Canada
| | - Sarah Nienhuis
- Department of Biological Sciences Trent University 2140 East Bank Drive Peterborough Ontario K9J 7B8 Canada
| | - Daelyn A. Woolnough
- Department of Biological Sciences Trent University 2140 East Bank Drive Peterborough Ontario K9J 7B8 Canada
- Department of Biology and Institute for Great Lakes Research Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant Michigan 48859 USA
| | - Marguerite A. Xenopoulos
- Department of Biological Sciences Trent University 2140 East Bank Drive Peterborough Ontario K9J 7B8 Canada
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22
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Thibodeau G, Walsh DA, Beisner BE. Rapid eco-evolutionary responses in perturbed phytoplankton communities. Proc Biol Sci 2016; 282:rspb.2015.1215. [PMID: 26311667 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1215] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Biodiversity currently faces unprecedented threats owing to species extinctions. Ecologically, compensatory dynamics can ensure stable community biomass following perturbation. However, whether there is a contribution of genetic diversity to community responses is an outstanding question. To date, the contribution of evolutionary processes through genotype shifts has not been assessed in naturally co-occurring multi-species communities in the field. We examined the mechanisms contributing to the response of a lake phytoplankton community exposed to either a press or pulse acidification perturbation in lake mesocosms. To assess community shifts in the ecological response of morphospecies, we identified taxa microscopically. We also assessed genotype shifts by sequencing the ITS2 region of ribosomal DNA. We observed ecological and genetic contributions to community responses. The ecological response was attributed to compensatory morphospecies dynamics and occurred primarily in the Pulse perturbation treatment. In the Press treatments, in addition to compensatory dynamics, we observed evidence for genotype selection in two species of chlorophytes, Desmodesmus cuneatus and an unidentified Chlamydomonas. Our study demonstrates that while genotype selection may be rare, it is detectable and occurs especially when new environmental conditions are maintained for long enough to force selection processes on standing variation.
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23
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Scranton K, Vasseur DA. Coexistence and emergent neutrality generate synchrony among competitors in fluctuating environments. THEOR ECOL-NETH 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s12080-016-0294-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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24
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Griffiths JR, Hajdu S, Downing AS, Hjerne O, Larsson U, Winder M. Phytoplankton community interactions and environmental sensitivity in coastal and offshore habitats. OIKOS 2015. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.02405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer R. Griffiths
- Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences; Stockholm University; SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Susanna Hajdu
- Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences; Stockholm University; SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Andrea S. Downing
- Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University; Kräftriket 2B SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Olle Hjerne
- Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences; Stockholm University; SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Ulf Larsson
- Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences; Stockholm University; SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Monika Winder
- Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences; Stockholm University; SE-106 91 Stockholm Sweden
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25
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Abrams PA, Cortez MH. The many potential indirect interactions between predators that share competing prey. ECOL MONOGR 2015. [DOI: 10.1890/14-2025.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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26
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Energy flow and functional compensation in Great Basin small mammals under natural and anthropogenic environmental change. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2015; 112:9656-61. [PMID: 26170294 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1424315112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Research on the ecological impacts of environmental change has primarily focused at the species level, leaving the responses of ecosystem-level properties like energy flow poorly understood. This is especially so over millennial timescales inaccessible to direct observation. Here we examine how energy flow within a Great Basin small mammal community responded to climate-driven environmental change during the past 12,800 y, and use this baseline to evaluate responses observed during the past century. Our analyses reveal marked stability in energy flow during rapid climatic warming at the terminal Pleistocene despite dramatic turnover in the distribution of mammalian body sizes and habitat-associated functional groups. Functional group turnover was strongly correlated with climate-driven changes in regional vegetation, with climate and vegetation change preceding energetic shifts in the small mammal community. In contrast, the past century has witnessed a substantial reduction in energy flow caused by an increase in energetic dominance of small-bodied species with an affinity for closed grass habitats. This suggests that modern changes in land cover caused by anthropogenic activities--particularly the spread of nonnative annual grasslands--has led to a breakdown in the compensatory dynamics of energy flow. Human activities are thus modifying the small mammal community in ways that differ from climate-driven expectations, resulting in an energetically novel ecosystem. Our study illustrates the need to integrate across ecological and temporal scales to provide robust insights for long-term conservation and management.
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