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Article: Increasing synchrony opposes stabilizing effects of species richness on terrestrial communities

TitleIncreasing synchrony opposes stabilizing effects of species richness on terrestrial communities
Authors
Keywordsdiversity–stability relationship
species abundance
species synchrony
temporal dynamics
Issue Date10-Apr-2023
PublisherWiley Open Access
Citation
Diversity and Distributions, 2023, v. 29, n. 7, p. 849-861 How to Cite?
Abstract

Aim: Ecological theory has predicted that species richness should stabilize communities, with mechanisms including species synchrony and population variability determining the net impacts. While these theories have been supported empirically, results can be sensitive to taxonomic bias as studies are often focussed on plants. Trophic differences between consumers and primary producers can lead to varying stabilizing effects of species richness. Here, we compared the impact of species richness on community variability in four taxonomic groups: terrestrial birds, mammals, invertebrates and plants.Location: Global.Method: Using data from 6763 time series globally (BioTIME) for four terrestrial taxa, we quantified community and population variability and species synchrony based on abundance fluctuations over time.Results: Species richness destabilized communities through increasing synchrony and stabilized communities through reducing population variability in all taxa. Such opposing effects weakened the net impacts of species richness on communities. Population variability had higher importance relative to synchrony in plant communities. By contrast, synchrony had more comparable (or even higher) importance compared with population variability in animal communities. When synchrony and population variability were not controlled, stabilizing impacts of species richness were detected in plant communities only.Main Conclusions: Our results highlight how species richness drives stabilizing and destabilizing mechanisms simultaneously across all taxa, with strong taxonomic variation in the relative importance of these mechanisms in regulating community variability. This questions the generality of previous findings on stabilizing impacts of species richness based on limited taxonomic coverage. Additionally, our results indicate the need to understand how the importance of stabilizing and destabilizing mechanisms differs in determining community variability across organisms and environments.


Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331314
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 4.6
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.787
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorTsang, TPN-
dc.contributor.authorPonisio, LC-
dc.contributor.authorBonebrake, TC-
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-21T06:54:37Z-
dc.date.available2023-09-21T06:54:37Z-
dc.date.issued2023-04-10-
dc.identifier.citationDiversity and Distributions, 2023, v. 29, n. 7, p. 849-861-
dc.identifier.issn1366-9516-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331314-
dc.description.abstract<p></p><p>Aim: Ecological theory has predicted that species richness should stabilize communities, with mechanisms including species synchrony and population variability determining the net impacts. While these theories have been supported empirically, results can be sensitive to taxonomic bias as studies are often focussed on plants. Trophic differences between consumers and primary producers can lead to varying stabilizing effects of species richness. Here, we compared the impact of species richness on community variability in four taxonomic groups: terrestrial birds, mammals, invertebrates and plants.Location: Global.Method: Using data from 6763 time series globally (BioTIME) for four terrestrial taxa, we quantified community and population variability and species synchrony based on abundance fluctuations over time.Results: Species richness destabilized communities through increasing synchrony and stabilized communities through reducing population variability in all taxa. Such opposing effects weakened the net impacts of species richness on communities. Population variability had higher importance relative to synchrony in plant communities. By contrast, synchrony had more comparable (or even higher) importance compared with population variability in animal communities. When synchrony and population variability were not controlled, stabilizing impacts of species richness were detected in plant communities only.Main Conclusions: Our results highlight how species richness drives stabilizing and destabilizing mechanisms simultaneously across all taxa, with strong taxonomic variation in the relative importance of these mechanisms in regulating community variability. This questions the generality of previous findings on stabilizing impacts of species richness based on limited taxonomic coverage. Additionally, our results indicate the need to understand how the importance of stabilizing and destabilizing mechanisms differs in determining community variability across organisms and environments.<br></p>-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherWiley Open Access-
dc.relation.ispartofDiversity and Distributions-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectdiversity–stability relationship-
dc.subjectspecies abundance-
dc.subjectspecies synchrony-
dc.subjecttemporal dynamics-
dc.titleIncreasing synchrony opposes stabilizing effects of species richness on terrestrial communities-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/ddi.13696-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85158045519-
dc.identifier.volume29-
dc.identifier.issue7-
dc.identifier.spage849-
dc.identifier.epage861-
dc.identifier.eissn1472-4642-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000981254300001-
dc.identifier.issnl1366-9516-

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