Towards a better ecological understanding of metacommunity stability: A multiscale framework to disentangle population variability and synchrony effects

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12310%2F22%3A43904642" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12310/22:43904642 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.13898" target="_blank" >https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.13898</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13898" target="_blank" >10.1111/1365-2745.13898</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Towards a better ecological understanding of metacommunity stability: A multiscale framework to disentangle population variability and synchrony effects

Original language description

Despite great progress in our understanding of the mechanisms governing ecosystem stability in local communities, we still lack knowledge at a larger spatial scale. Studying the stability of metacommunities requires assessing the temporal stability and synchrony of populations across space and organizational levels. Previous attempts to disentangle these effects have provided limited ecological interpretations, and conceptual improvements are needed to identify the underlying ecological processes. We propose an extended framework aiming at disentangling simultaneously the relative effects of population stability and different types of synchronies on metacommunity stability. We adapted previous methods of decomposing stability into a new set of indices associated with clearer ecological hypotheses. Particularly, we provide synchrony indices that are not affected by statistical properties of the metacommunity but focus on species responses to environment, demography and interactions. We applied this framework to a unique dataset describing the sorted biomass of individual plant populations, across 12 communities of a species-rich meadow, and for 16 years. The communities were sampled in different treatments of fertilization and dominant removal to evaluate the effect of environmental heterogeneity on stability. We found higher stability at a larger spatial scale, mainly due to statistical averaging (portfolio effect). The variability of individual populations was an important determinant of the stability of the whole metacommunity. Consistent with the hypothesis of a common response to environmental conditions, we found that the fluctuations of populations were mostly synchronized (within and between species) at a large spatial scale and tended to destabilize the metacommunity. On the other hand, opposite fluctuations (anti-synchrony) between populations occurred at the local scale, probably due to local species interactions. Synthesis. Our framework appears as a powerful tool to test how ecological processes occurring simultaneously at different spatial and organizational scales affect the stability of metacommunities. This study advances our ecological understanding of the processes underlying the stability of species-rich environments.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA20-02901S" target="_blank" >GA20-02901S: Community diversity as a response and as a driver: Exploiting long-term experiments to address functional roles of diversity</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

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

Name of the periodical

Journal of Ecology

ISSN

0022-0477

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

110

Issue of the periodical within the volume

7

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

14

Pages from-to

1632-1645

UT code for WoS article

000794289900001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85129906493