Understanding temporal variability across trophic levels and spatial scales in freshwater ecosystems

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00020711%3A_____%2F23%3A10155119" target="_blank" >RIV/00020711:_____/23:10155119 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecy.4219" target="_blank" >https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecy.4219</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4219" target="_blank" >10.1002/ecy.4219</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Understanding temporal variability across trophic levels and spatial scales in freshwater ecosystems

Original language description

A tenet of ecology is that temporal variability in ecological structure and processes tends to decrease with increasing spatial scales (from locales to regions) and levels of biological organization (from populations to communities). However, patterns in temporal variability across trophic levels and the mechanisms that produce them remain poorly understood. Here we analyzed the abundance time series of spatially structured communities (i.e., metacommunities) spanning basal resources to top predators from 355 freshwater sites across three continents. Specifically, we used a hierarchical partitioning method to disentangle the propagation of temporal variability in abundance across spatial scales and trophic levels. We then used structural equation modeling to determine if the strength and direction of relationships between temporal variability, synchrony, biodiversity, and environmental and spatial settings depended on trophic level and spatial scale. We found that temporal variability in abundance decreased from producers to tertiary consumers but did so mainly at the local scale. Species population synchrony within sites increased with trophic level, whereas synchrony among communities decreased. At the local scale, temporal variability in precipitation and species diversity were associated with population variability (linear partial coefficient, β = 0.23) and population synchrony (β = MINUS SIGN 0.39) similarly across trophic levels, respectively. At the regional scale, community synchrony was not related to climatic or spatial predictors, but the strength of relationships between metacommunity variability and community synchrony decreased systematically from top predators (β = 0.73) to secondary consumers (β = 0.54), to primary consumers (β = 0.30) to producers (β = 0). Our results suggest that mobile predators may often stabilize metacommunities by buffering variability that originates at the base of food webs. This finding illustrates that the trophic structure of metacommunities, which integrates variation in organismal body size and its correlates, should be considered when investigating ecological stability in natural systems. More broadly, our work advances the notion that temporal stability is an emergent property of ecosystems that may be threatened in complex ways by biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Ecology

ISSN

1939-9170

e-ISSN

1939-9170

Volume of the periodical

105

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

15

Pages from-to

1-15

UT code for WoS article

—

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85179929562