Net primary productivity is a principal driver of biodiversity; large-scale regions with higher productivity generally have more species. This pattern emerges because β-diversity (compositional ...variation across local sites) increases with productivity, but the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are unknown. Using data from a long-term experiment in replicate ponds, I show that higher β-diversity at higher productivity resulted from a stronger role for stochastic relative to deterministic assembly processes with increasing productivity. This shift in the relative importance of stochasticity was most consistent with the hypothesis of more intense priority effects leading to multiple stable equilibria at higher productivity. Thus, shifts in community assembly mechanisms across a productivity gradient may underlie one of the most prominent biodiversity gradients on the planet.
Deterministic theories in community ecology suggest that local, niche-based processes, such as environmental filtering, biotic interactions and interspecific trade-offs largely determine patterns of ...species diversity and composition. In contrast, more stochastic theories emphasize the importance of chance colonization, random extinction and ecological drift. The schisms between deterministic and stochastic perspectives, which date back to the earliest days of ecology, continue to fuel contemporary debates (e.g. niches versus neutrality). As illustrated by the pioneering studies of Robert H. MacArthur and co-workers, resolution to these debates requires consideration of how the importance of local processes changes across scales. Here, we develop a framework for disentangling the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes in generating site-to-site variation in species composition (β-diversity) along ecological gradients (disturbance, productivity and biotic interactions) and among biogeographic regions that differ in the size of the regional species pool. We illustrate how to discern the importance of deterministic processes using nullmodel approaches that explicitly account for local and regional factors that inherently create stochastic turnover. By embracing processes across scales, we can build a more synthetic framework for understanding how niches structure patterns of biodiversity in the face of stochastic processes that emerge from local and biogeographic factors.
The 50-ha long-term forest plot on Barro Colorado Island in Panama was 'ground zero' for the development of ecology's 'neutral theory' and comparisons with its 'niche theory' counterpart. In this ...issue, Garzon-Lopez and colleagues used tree distributions at this site to recast the unresolved (and unresolvable) debate to show that observational scale drives the perception of which processes predominate.
Historically, the biodiversity and composition of species in a locality was thought to be influenced primarily by deterministic factors. In such cases, species' niches create differential responses ...to environmental conditions and interspecific interactions, which combine to determine that locality's biodiversity and species composition. More recently, proponents of the neutral theory have placed a premium on how stochastic factors, such as birth, death, colonization, and extinction (termed "ecological drift") influence diversity and species composition in a locality independent of their niches. Here, I develop the hypothesis that the relative importance of stochastic ecological drift and/or priority effects depend on the harshness of the ecological filter in those habitats. I established long-term experimental ponds to explore the relative importance of community assembly history and drought on patterns of community compositional similarity among ponds that were otherwise similar in their environmental conditions. I show considerable site-to-site variation in pond community composition in the absence of drought that likely resulted from a combination of stochastic ecological drift and priority effects. However, in ponds that experienced drought, I found much higher similarity among communities that likely resulted from niche-selection filtering out species from the regional pool that could not tolerate such environmental harshness. These results implicate the critical role for understanding the processes of community assembly when examining patterns of biodiversity at different spatial scales.
Recent case studies showing substantial declines of insect abundances have raised alarm, but how widespread such patterns are remains unclear. We compiled data from 166 long-term surveys of insect ...assemblages across 1676 sites to investigate trends in insect abundances over time. Overall, we found considerable variation in trends even among adjacent sites but an average decline of terrestrial insect abundance by ~9% per decade and an increase of freshwater insect abundance by ~11% per decade. Both patterns were largely driven by strong trends in North America and some European regions. We found some associations with potential drivers (e.g., land-use drivers), and trends in protected areas tended to be weaker. Our findings provide a more nuanced view of spatiotemporal patterns of insect abundance trends than previously suggested.
The abundance and distribution of species across the landscape depend on the interaction between local, spatial, and stochastic processes. However, empirical syntheses relating these processes to ...spatiotemporal patterns of structure in metacommunities remain elusive. One important reason for this lack of synthesis is that the relative importance of the core assembly processes (dispersal, selection, and drift) critically depends on the spatial grain and extent over which communities are studied. To illustrate this, we simulated different aspects of community assembly on heterogeneous landscapes, including the strength of response to environmental heterogeneity (inherent to niche theory) vs. dispersal and stochastic drift (inherent to neutral theory). We show that increasing spatial extent leads to increasing importance of niche selection, whereas increasing spatial grain leads to decreasing importance of niche selection. The strength of these scaling effects depended on environment configuration, dispersal capacity, and niche breadth. By mapping the variation observed from the scaling effects in simulations, we could recreate the entire range of variation observed within and among empirical studies. This means that variation in the relative importance of assembly processes among empirical studies is largely scale dependent and cannot be directly compared. The scaling coefficient of the relative contribution of assembly processes, however, can be interpreted as a scale-integrative estimate to compare assembly processes across different regions and ecosystems. This emphasizes the necessity to consider spatial scaling as an explicit component of studies intended to infer the importance of community assembly processes.
Site‐to‐site variation in species composition (β‐diversity) generally increases from low‐ to high‐diversity regions. Although biogeographical differences in community assembly mechanisms may explain ...this pattern, random sampling effects can create this pattern through differences in regional species pools. Here, we compared assembly mechanisms between spatially extensive networks of temperate and tropical forest plots with highly divergent species pools (46 vs. 607 species). After controlling for sampling effects, β‐diversity of woody plants was similar and higher than expected by chance in both forests, reflecting strong intraspecific aggregation. However, different mechanisms appeared to explain aggregation in the two forests. In the temperate forest, aggregation reflected stronger environmental correlations, suggesting an important role for species‐sorting (e.g. environmental filtering) processes, whereas in the tropics, aggregation reflected stronger spatial correlations, more likely reflecting dispersal limitation. We suggest that biogeographical differences in the relative importance of different community assembly mechanisms contribute to these striking gradients in global biodiversity.
Linking species traits with the variation in species assemblages across habitats has often proved useful for developing a more mechanistic understanding of species distributions in metacommunities. ...However, summarizing the rich tapestry of a species in all of its nuance with a few key ecological traits can also lead to an abstraction that provides less predictability than when using taxonomy alone. As a further complication, taxonomic and functional diversities can be inequitably compared, either by integrating taxonomic-level information into the calculation of how functional aspects of communities vary or by detecting spurious trait-environment relationships. To remedy this, we here synthesize analyses of 80 datasets on different taxa, ecosystems, and spatial scales that include information on abundance or presence/absence of species across sites with variable environmental conditions and the species’ traits. By developing analyses that treat functional and taxonomic diversity equitably, we ask when functional diversity helps to explain metacommunity structure. We found that patterns of functional diversity explained metacommunity structure and response to environmental variation in only 25% of the datasets using a multitrait approach but up to 59% using a single-trait approach. Nevertheless, an average of only 19% (interquartile range = 0%–29%) of the traits showed a significant signal across environmental gradients. Species-level traits, as typically collected and analyzed through functional diversity patterns, often do not bring predictive advantages over what the taxonomic information already holds. While our assessment of a limited advantage of using traits to explain variation in species assemblages was largely true across ecosystems, traits played a more useful role in explaining variation when many traits were used and when trait constructs were more related to species’ status, life history, and mobility. We propose future research directions to make trait-based approaches and data more helpful for inference in metacommunity ecology.
Although invasive plant species often reduce diversity, they rarely cause plant extinctions. We surveyed paired invaded and uninvaded plant communities from three biomes. We reconcile the discrepancy ...in diversity loss from invaders by showing that invaded communities have lower local richness but steeper species accumulation with area than that of uninvaded communities, leading to proportionately fewer species loss at broader spatial scales. We show that invaders drive scale-dependent biodiversity loss through strong neutral sampling effects on the number of individuals in a community. We also show that nonneutral species extirpations are due to a proportionately larger effect of invaders on common species, suggesting that rare species are buffered against extinction. Our study provides a synthetic perspective on the threat of invasions to biodiversity loss across spatial scales.
The metacommunity concept has the potential to integrate local and regional dynamics within a general community ecology framework. To this end, the concept must move beyond the discrete archetypes ...that have largely defined it (e.g. neutral vs. species sorting) and better incorporate local scale species interactions and coexistence mechanisms. Here, we present a fundamental reconception of the framework that explicitly links local coexistence theory to the spatial processes inherent to metacommunity theory, allowing for a continuous range of competitive community dynamics. These dynamics emerge from the three underlying processes that shape ecological communities: (1) density‐independent responses to abiotic conditions, (2) density‐dependent biotic interactions and (3) dispersal. Stochasticity is incorporated in the demographic realisation of each of these processes. We formalise this framework using a simulation model that explores a wide range of competitive metacommunity dynamics by varying the strength of the underlying processes. Using this model and framework, we show how existing theories, including the traditional metacommunity archetypes, are linked by this common set of processes. We then use the model to generate new hypotheses about how the three processes combine to interactively shape diversity, functioning and stability within metacommunities.
Here, we present a fundamental reconception of the metacommunity framework that explicitly links local coexistence theory to the spatial processes inherent to metacommunity theory, allowing for a continuous range of competitive community dynamics. These dynamics emerge from the three underlying processes that shape ecological communities: (1) density‐independent responses to abiotic conditions, (2) density‐dependent biotic interactions and (3) dispersal. Using a simulation model, we show how classic theories in community ecology are linked by the three common processes in our framework.
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