ArticlePublisher preview available

Diversity–stability relationships across organism groups and ecosystem types become decoupled across spatial scales

Wiley
Ecology
Authors:
Nathan Wisnoski at Mississippi State University
Nathan Wisnoski
Riley Andrade at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Riley Andrade
Max C. N. Castorani at University of Virginia
Max C. N. Castorani
Christopher Catano at University of California, Riverside
Christopher Catano
Show all 15 authorsHide
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

The relationship between biodiversity and stability, or its inverse, temporal variability, is multidimensional and complex. Temporal variability in aggregate properties, like total biomass or abundance, is typically lower in communities with higher species diversity (i.e., the diversity–stability relationship [DSR]). At broader spatial extents, regional‐scale aggregate variability is also lower with higher regional diversity (in plant systems) and with lower spatial synchrony. However, focusing exclusively on aggregate properties of communities may overlook potentially destabilizing compositional shifts. It is not yet clear how diversity is related to different components of variability across spatial scales, nor whether regional DSRs emerge across a broad range of organisms and ecosystem types. To test these questions, we compiled a large collection of long‐term metacommunity data spanning a wide range of taxonomic groups (e.g., birds, fish, plants, invertebrates) and ecosystem types (e.g., deserts, forests, oceans). We applied a newly developed quantitative framework for jointly analyzing aggregate and compositional variability across scales. We quantified DSRs for composition and aggregate variability in local communities and metacommunities. At the local scale, more diverse communities were less variable, but this effect was stronger for aggregate than compositional properties. We found no stabilizing effect of γ‐diversity on metacommunity variability, but β‐diversity played a strong role in reducing compositional spatial synchrony, which reduced regional variability. Spatial synchrony differed among taxa, suggesting differences in stabilization by spatial processes. However, metacommunity variability was more strongly driven by local variability than by spatial synchrony. Across a broader range of taxa, our results suggest that high γ‐diversity does not consistently stabilize aggregate properties at regional scales without sufficient spatial β‐diversity to reduce spatial synchrony.
Local (a, b) and spatial (c, d) diversity–stability relationships. Relationship between mean α‐diversity and (a) local aggregate variability and (b) local compositional variability. Bold black lines represent the fixed effects of α‐diversity and thinner colored lines the relationships within each metacommunity. Rm2 represents the variance explained by the fixed effects only, while Rc2 represents the variance explained by the fixed and random effects. Mean spatial β‐diversity was significantly negatively related to spatial synchrony in (c) aggregate and (d) compositional properties. Solid line represents the fixed effects from a Bayesian linear mixed effects model. Gray lines depict fixed effects from a sample of posterior models.
Local (a, b) and spatial (c, d) diversity–stability relationships. Relationship between mean α‐diversity and (a) local aggregate variability and (b) local compositional variability. Bold black lines represent the fixed effects of α‐diversity and thinner colored lines the relationships within each metacommunity. Rm2 represents the variance explained by the fixed effects only, while Rc2 represents the variance explained by the fixed and random effects. Mean spatial β‐diversity was significantly negatively related to spatial synchrony in (c) aggregate and (d) compositional properties. Solid line represents the fixed effects from a Bayesian linear mixed effects model. Gray lines depict fixed effects from a sample of posterior models.
… 
The relationship between compositional and aggregate spatial synchrony for all metacommunities (Spearman's ρ = 0.47). Metacommunities above the 1:1 line had a smaller reduction in aggregate than compositional variability from local to regional scales, while those below the 1:1 line had a relatively greater reduction in aggregate than compositional variability.
The relationship between compositional and aggregate spatial synchrony for all metacommunities (Spearman's ρ = 0.47). Metacommunities above the 1:1 line had a smaller reduction in aggregate than compositional variability from local to regional scales, while those below the 1:1 line had a relatively greater reduction in aggregate than compositional variability.
… 
Diversity–stability relationships for aggregate (left column) and compositional (right column) variability at the metacommunity scale, in relation to the temporal average of regional gamma‐diversity (a, b), the temporal average of spatial beta diversity (c, d), and the temporal average of mean alpha‐diversity (e, f). Solid line represents the fixed effects from a Bayesian linear mixed effects model, shown only when the 95% credible intervals exclude zero. Gray lines depict fixed effects from posterior possible models.
Diversity–stability relationships for aggregate (left column) and compositional (right column) variability at the metacommunity scale, in relation to the temporal average of regional gamma‐diversity (a, b), the temporal average of spatial beta diversity (c, d), and the temporal average of mean alpha‐diversity (e, f). Solid line represents the fixed effects from a Bayesian linear mixed effects model, shown only when the 95% credible intervals exclude zero. Gray lines depict fixed effects from posterior possible models.
… 
Structural equation model (SEM) showing the significant paths and standardized coefficients. Blue solid lines indicate significant positive relationships and the red dashed line indicates significant negative relationships. Nonsignificant relationships are not shown. Widths of the arrows are proportional to the standardized path coefficients.
Structural equation model (SEM) showing the significant paths and standardized coefficients. Blue solid lines indicate significant positive relationships and the red dashed line indicates significant negative relationships. Nonsignificant relationships are not shown. Widths of the arrows are proportional to the standardized path coefficients.
… 
Figures - available from: Ecology
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Wiley.
Learn more
Content available from Ecology 
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
ARTICLE
Diversity–stability relationships across organism
groups and ecosystem types become decoupled across
spatial scales
Nathan I. Wisnoski
1,2,3
| Riley Andrade
4,5
| Max C. N. Castorani
6
|
Christopher P. Catano
7
| Aldo Compagnoni
8,9
| Thomas Lamy
10,11
|
Nina K. Lany
12
| Luca Marazzi
13,14
| Sydne Record
15,16
|
Annie C. Smith
17,18,19,20
| Christopher M. Swan
21
|
Jonathan D. Tonkin
22,23,24
| Nicole M. Voelker
21
|
Phoebe L. Zarnetske
18,19
| Eric R. Sokol
25,26
1
Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, USA
2
Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA
3
Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
4
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana,
Illinois, USA
5
Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
6
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
7
Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
8
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
9
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
10
Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA
11
MARBEC, University of Montpellier, CNRS, Ifremer, IRD, Montpellier, France
12
Northern Research Station, Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Durham, New Hampshire, USA
13
Institute of Environment, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA
14
Thames21, London, UK
15
Department of Biology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
16
Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
17
Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
18
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
19
Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
20
Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Olympia, Washington, USA
21
Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
22
School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
23
Te P
unaha Matatini Centre of Research Excellence, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
24
Bioprotection Aotearoa Centre of Research Excellence, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
25
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), Boulder, Colorado, USA
26
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Received: 5 October 2022 Revised: 9 June 2023 Accepted: 15 June 2023
DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4136
Ecology. 2023;104:e4136. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/r/ecy © 2023 The Ecological Society of America. 1of17
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4136
... Much of the empirical support for a positive relationship between species diversity and community stability comes from biodiversity experiments that manipulate plant species number (Tilman, Reich, and Knops 2006;Craven et al. 2018;Zhao et al. 2022), while studies using observational data and encompassing numerous taxonomic groups are relatively rare (but see Jarzyna et al. 2022, Wisnoski et al. 2023). Moreover, current literature mainly focuses on exploring the effect of taxonomic diversity on stability (Liang et al. 2022, Wisnoski et al. 2023, while studies incorporating other facets of diversity (e.g., functional diversity) tend to focus on a single species group (Craven et al. 2018;Li et al. 2021). ...
... Much of the empirical support for a positive relationship between species diversity and community stability comes from biodiversity experiments that manipulate plant species number (Tilman, Reich, and Knops 2006;Craven et al. 2018;Zhao et al. 2022), while studies using observational data and encompassing numerous taxonomic groups are relatively rare (but see Jarzyna et al. 2022, Wisnoski et al. 2023). Moreover, current literature mainly focuses on exploring the effect of taxonomic diversity on stability (Liang et al. 2022, Wisnoski et al. 2023, while studies incorporating other facets of diversity (e.g., functional diversity) tend to focus on a single species group (Craven et al. 2018;Li et al. 2021). Thus, while the importance of functional traits on community assembly and functioning is increasingly recognised (Gross et al. 2017), it remains unknown how ubiquitous the biodiversity-stability relationship is across variable taxa in natural communities and how functional trait diversity contributes to this relationship in the wild (Qiao et al. 2023). ...
... Grace, Loreau, and Schmid 2022), but with taxon-dependent underpinnings. By using long-term species' monitoring data across a large spatial extent, our findings support previous studies (see e.g., Downing, Brown, and Leibold 2014, Craven et al. 2018, Zhao et al. 2022, but see e.g., Evans et al. 2022, Wisnoski et al. 2023 for natural communities). However, our approach enables us to identify how the pathways differ among taxa. ...
Cross‐Taxa Analysis of Long‐Term Data Reveals a Positive Biodiversity‐Stability Relationship With Taxon‐Specific Mechanistic Underpinning
Article
Full-text available
Anthropogenic environmental change is altering biodiversity at unprecedented rates, threatening the stability of ecosystem services on which humans depend. However, most of what is known about biodiversity–stability relationships comes from experimental studies making extrapolation to real ecosystems difficult. Here, we ask whether the shape and underlying mechanisms of the biodiversity–stability relationship vary among taxa in real‐world communities. Our study harnesses the power of six terrestrial and aquatic long‐term monitoring datasets, encompassing entire assemblages at hundreds of georeferenced sites providing 20 years long community measurements, covering a 1200 km latitudinal gradient across Finland. In general, we detect a positive relationship between species richness and stability. Structural equation modelling reveals that this relationship is modified by functional trait community composition, with specific mechanisms varying among the taxa. Our study is among the first to highlight the importance of functional traits in elucidating both general and taxon‐specific impacts of biodiversity on community stability.
View
... In contrast to experiments, investigations of DSRs along natural diversity gradients have yielded less consistent outcomes (Houlahan et al. 2018; van der Plas 2019; Valencia et al. 2020;Wisnoski et al. 2023). While positive DSRs are common, naturally assembled communities often exhibit non-significant DSRs (Houlahan et al. 2018; van der Plas 2019), and a noteworthy minority of DSRs may be inverted (Houlahan et al. 2018;Wisnoski et al. 2023). ...
... In contrast to experiments, investigations of DSRs along natural diversity gradients have yielded less consistent outcomes (Houlahan et al. 2018; van der Plas 2019; Valencia et al. 2020;Wisnoski et al. 2023). While positive DSRs are common, naturally assembled communities often exhibit non-significant DSRs (Houlahan et al. 2018; van der Plas 2019), and a noteworthy minority of DSRs may be inverted (Houlahan et al. 2018;Wisnoski et al. 2023). Evidence for positive DSRs along natural richness gradients is particularly sparse for marine systems. ...
... The remaining two produced divergent results; one reported a positive DSR (Lamy et al. 2020), and the other a negative DSR (Valdivia and Molis 2009). Within marine systems, studies often concentrate on the mesoscale (~ hundreds of km 2 or less; see, e.g., datasets in Wisnoski et al. 2023). For larger-scale studies, researchers have tended to focus on stability in species composition, or short-term proxies for stability in community abundance (Mellin et al. 2016(Mellin et al. , 2019Yan et al. 2023;Yeager, Gouhier, and Hughes 2020), rather than stability of community abundance itself. ...
Environmental Gradients Linked to Human Impacts, Not Species Richness, Drive Regional Variation in Community Stability in Coral Reef Fishes
Article
Full-text available
The stabilising effect of biodiversity on aggregate community properties is well‐established experimentally, but its importance in naturally assembled communities at larger scales requires considering its covariation with other biotic and abiotic factors. Here, we examine the diversity–stability relationship in a 27‐year coral reef fish time series at 39 reefs spanning 10° latitude on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. We find that an apparent relationship between species richness and synchrony of population fluctuations is driven by these two variables' covariation with proximity to coastal influences. Additionally, coral cover volatility destabilises fish assemblages by increasing average population variability but not synchrony, an effect mediated by changes in the intensity of density regulation in the fish community. Our findings indicate that these two environmental factors, both of which are strongly influenced by anthropogenic activity, impact community stability more than diversity does, but by distinct pathways reflecting different underlying community‐dynamic processes.
View
... The second mechanism is known as species stability within communities, which can be defined as the ability of some species to tolerate environmental fluctuations and to maintain relatively constant abundance or performance through time (Box 1, Panel A, figure 1c; Hector et al., 2010;Loreau & de Mazancourt, 2013). Recently there has been an increasing awareness about the importance of investigating mechanisms that connect diversity and stability across spatial scales (e.g., Liang et al., 2022;Qiao et al., 2022;Wang & Loreau, 2014, 2016Wilcox et al., 2017;Wisnoski et al., 2023). ...
... To date, most empirical studies report a positive stabilizing effect of β-diversity (e.g., Catano et al., 2020;Liang et al., 2022;Qiao et al., 2022), although non-significant effects have also been reported (Wilcox et al., 2017;Zhang et al., 2019). Whereas some studies have found a higher contribution of local stability than spatial asynchrony to regional stability (e.g., Wilcox et al., 2017;Wisnoski et al., 2023), others have found the opposite pattern (e.g., Catano et al., 2020;Qiao et al., 2022;Qiao, Lamy, et al., 2023). In general, the larger the spatial extent covered by a given study, the larger the environmental heterogeneity and the spatial β-diversity, which enhances the relative contribution of spatial asynchrony to regional stability (e.g., Catano et al., 2020;Qiao et al., 2022;Qiao, Lamy, et al., 2023). ...
... Our study shows that spatial asynchrony consistently contributes more to the regional stability of IRs compared to PRs. Such contribution results in spatial decoupling of diversity-stability relationships across spatial scales (Wisnoski et al., 2023), indicating that regional stabilization is reached despite local communities being individually highly variable through time. ...
River flow intermittence influence biodiversity–stability relationships across spatial scales: Implications for an uncertain future
Article
Full-text available
Climate change is increasing the proportion of river networks experiencing flow intermittence, which in turn reduces local diversity (i.e., α‐diversity) but enhances variation in species composition among sites (i.e., β‐diversity), with potential consequences on ecosystem stability. Indeed, the multiscale theory of stability proposes that regional stability can be attained not only by local processes but also by spatial asynchrony among sites. However, it is still unknown whether and how scale‐dependent changes in biodiversity associated with river flow intermittence influence stability across spatial scales. To elucidate this, we here focus on multiple metacommunities of French rivers experiencing contrasting levels of flow intermittence. We clearly show that the relative contribution of spatial asynchrony to regional stability was higher for metacommunities of intermittent than perennial rivers. Surprisingly, spatial asynchrony was mainly linked to asynchronous population dynamics among sites, but not to β‐diversity. This finding was robust for both truly aquatic macroinvertebrates and for taxa that disperse aerially during their adult stages, implying the need to conserve multiple sites across the landscape to attain regional stability in intermittent rivers. By contrast, metacommunities of truly aquatic macroinvertebrates inhabiting perennial rivers were mainly stabilized by local processes. Our study provides novel evidence that metacommunities of perennial and intermittent rivers are stabilized by contrasting processes operating at different spatial scales. We demonstrate that flow intermittence enhances spatial asynchrony among sites, thus resulting in a regional stabilizing effect on intermittent river networks. Considering that climate change is increasing the proportion of intermittent rivers worldwide, our results suggest that managers need to focus on the spatial dynamics of metacommunities more than on local‐scale processes to monitor, restore, and conserve freshwater biodiversity.
View
... Such that the species richness of plant community remains relatively constant and is not sensitive to the invasion of alien species [2][3][4][5][6]. However, the corresponding research results have shown that there is no correlation between species diversity and ecological stability, and even negative correlations [7][8][9]. Accompanied by the continuation of different research results, the maintenance of environmental stability is the result of multidimensional and multiple maintenance mechanisms [10,11]. Such as, diversity insurance hypothesis [12], moderate interference hypothesis [13], resource limitation hypothesis [14], complex food web hypothesis [15][16][17], and dominant population hypothesis [18,19], etc. ...
... It is a generally accepted approach to measure the functional stability of plant community by using above-ground net primary productivity or standing crops [1]. Researchers have emphasized the significance of species diversity in this process, but they have weakened or ignored the influence of species composition ratio and interactions among plant species [4,9,14]. It is well known that the proportion of species is a fundamental structural property of plant community [21,22]. ...
The relationships between structure and function of plant communities in the desert steppe
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
  • BMC PLANT BIOL
Background Assessing the relationships between spatial and temporal structures and functions of plant communities is an effective way to understand the changing dynamics of plant communities in specific environments. In this study, we investigated the response of structural and functional stabilities of plant communities to stocking rate in the desert steppe over a 16-year grazing period as the research background. Methods We used classical statistical methods to investigate the quantitative characteristics of plant communities over time (2014–2019) and space (2017–2019) at four stocking rates (control, CK, 0 sheep·ha–1·month–1; light grazing, LG, 0.15 sheep·ha–1·month–1; moderate grazing, MG, 0.30 sheep·ha–1·month–1; heavy grazing, HG, 0.45 sheep·ha–1·month–1) in the Stipa breviflora desert steppe of Inner Mongolia. We then examined the relationship between structural and functional stability of plant communities. Results On the spatial scale, the structural stability of plant community was the highest in the LG treatment and the lowest in the MG treatment. The functional stability of plant community was the highest in the MG treatment and the lowest in the HG treatment. On the temporal scale, the structural stability of plant community was the highest in the MG treatment and the lowest in the LG treatment. The functional stability of plant community was the highest in the LG treatment and the lowest in the HG treatment. Affected by the stocking rate, the structural stability of plant community fluctuated more widely on the spatial scale and its functional stability varied more widely on the temporal scale. Nonetheless, the functional stability of the plant community is more responsive to the stocking rate. Conclusions Our findings suggest that influenced by the disturbance of stocking rate, the structural stability of plant community is more significant than the functional stability in the desert grassland ecosystem, which lays a solid foundation for the study of ecosystem stability.
View
... Empirical evidence from grassland ecosystems, such as the Loess Plateau and northern Tibetan Plateau, further validated this positive relationship [23,24]. However, contemporary research reveals complex non-linear relationships, with some studies reporting destabilization effects at high diversity levels [25][26][27][28] or context-dependent correlations [29,30]. Furthermore, certain studies have argued against a simple linear relationship between these two variables, proposing instead a multivariate interaction [31]. ...
Relationship Between Species Diversity and Community Stability of Vegetation Patches in Thymus mongolicus Steppe, China
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2025
Grassland ecosystems play a crucial role in sustaining the stability of global ecosystem functions. However, the plant communities of grasslands exhibit spatially heterogeneous stability patterns such as vegetation patches influenced by human disturbances, herbivore activities, and climatic and topographic factors. This study investigated the vegetation dynamics in the Thymus mongolicus steppe in Bairin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia, analyzing the structural characteristics, species diversity, and community stability across six vegetation patches. Our findings revealed that patches dominated by grasses exhibited the highest values in coverage, height, density, and aboveground biomass. Besides, species diversity indices were highest in Achnatherum splendens patches and Festuca litvinovii patches, followed by Thymus mongolicus communities and Leymus chinensis patches, while the lowest diversity indices were observed in Artemisia frigida patches and Convolvulus ammannii patches. The order of community stability from high to low was Leymus chinensis patches, Festuca litvinovii patches, Achnatherum splendens patches, Convolvulus ammannii patches, Artemisia frigida patches, and Thymus mongolicus communities. Both the Patrick richness index and Margalef index showed a significant positive correlation with community stability (p < 0.05), indicating that plant communities with a higher species diversity tend to be more stable. These results emphasize the critical role of plant diversity in mediating community stability and contribute to the development of more effective grassland conservation and restoration strategies to maintain the health and sustainability of grassland ecosystems.
View
... In addition, environmental variability results in notable variations in population dynamics between various communities. Preventing regional homogenization will further increase the resilience of island ecosystems (Wisnoski et al. 2023). ...
Spatial interrelationships between soil organic carbon and plant diversity at multiple scales within China’s largest archipelago
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
  • PLANT SOIL
Aims An essential part of the interaction between ecosystem productivity and biodiversity is the spatial interrelationship between plant diversity (PD) and soil organic carbon (SOC). Therefore, its thorough understanding is crucial for making ecological plans and adapting to climate change. Methods Based on building the multi-scale analysis framework of "archipelago and region double scopes + island and site double units," this study evaluated the spatial correlations between PD and SOC at different scales and clarified the key factors and influence paths of regulating spatial interrelationships. Results The observations indicated a negative correlation between SOC and herb diversity, and a positive correlation between SOC and tree and shrub diversity. Meanwhile, at an identical scope, as the spatial unit increased, the spatial interrelations weakened, and the dominant environmental factors in the fine spatial unit tended to be spatially homogenized and transformed to be dominated by factors in the coarse spatial unit. Specifically, the distributions of PD and SOC in the island unit were influenced significantly by area-weighted mean shape index, number of patches, total edge, and island area, with contribution rates of 33.3%, 21.2%, 21.1%, and 20.3%, respectively. The distribution of both at the site unit was influenced by slope (32.1%), total nitrogen (18.6%), human influence index (18.1%), and salinity (14.7%). Conclusion The study developed a mechanism framework that explained the "community–landscape–local" spatial interrelationships between PD and SOC in the archipelago. It recommends a enhancement strategy of "optimizing plant community–reducing human intervention–establishing governance system" as a chain.
View
... Likewise, as comparative and synthetic (e.g. meta-analytic) approaches continue to gain in popularity, many studies explicitly compare stability across systems (Biggs et al., 2020;Hillebrand et al., 2018;Hillebrand & Kunze, 2020;Huang & Xia, 2019;Jones & Schmitz, 2009;Rip & McCann, 2011;Wisnoski et al., 2023;Xu et al., 2021). For example, variability tends to be lower and recovery is slower in terrestrial than in aquatic systems (Hillebrand & Kunze, 2020;Jones & Schmitz, 2009;Rip & McCann, 2011) and forested systems compared to grasslands and shrublands (Geng et al., 2019). ...
Accounting for effects of growth rate when measuring ecological stability in response to pulse perturbations
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2024
Ecological stability is a vital component of natural ecosystems that can inform effective conservation and ecosystem management. Furthermore, there is increasing interest in making comparisons of stability values across sites, systems and taxonomic groups, often using comparative synthetic approaches, such as meta‐analysis. However, these synthetic approaches often compare/contrast systems where measures of stability mean very different things to the taxa involved. Here, we present results from theoretical models and empirical data to illustrate how differences in growth rates among taxa influence four widely used metrics of ecological stability of species abundances responding to pulse perturbations: resilience, recovery, resistance and temporal stability. We refer to these classic growth‐rate‐dependent metrics as ‘realised’ stability. We show that realised resilience and realised temporal stability vary as a function of organisms' growth rates; realised recovery depends on the relation between growth rate and sampling duration; and realised resistance depends on the relation between growth rate and sampling interval. To account for these influences, we introduce metrics intended to be more independent of growth rates, which we refer to as ‘intrinsic’ stability. Intrinsic stability can be used to summarise the overall effects of a disturbance, separately from internal recovery processes – thereby allowing more general comparisons of disturbances across organisms and contexts. We argue that joint consideration of both realised and intrinsic stability is important for future comparative studies.
View
... Our results indicate that local stability is the main driver of regional stability, suggesting that habitat protection and restoration might be important to increase both local and regional stability of butterflies. This agrees with studies that report a high contribution of local scale processes to the regional stability of multiple organisms (e.g., Wisnoski et al., 2023). ...
Connectivity and climate influence diversity–stability relationships across spatial scales in European butterfly metacommunities
Article
Full-text available
Aim Anthropogenic‐driven biodiversity loss can impact ecosystem stability. However, most studies have only evaluated the diversity–stability relationship at the local scale and we do not fully understand which factors stabilize animal populations and communities across scales. Here, we investigate the role of species dispersal ability, climate, spatial distance and different facets of biodiversity on the stability of butterfly populations and communities across multiple spatial scales. Location Primarily Western Europe. Time Period 2005–2016. Major Taxa Studied Butterflies (Rhopalocera) of Europe. Methods We assembled a continent‐wide database of European butterflies' abundance and used Structural Equation Modelling to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of multiple stabilizing mechanisms. In parallel, we tested the effect of dispersal ability on the stability at multiple spatial scales, using a butterfly mobility index as an indicator of dispersal capacity. Results Regional stability strongly reflected local stability, which in turn was driven by both taxonomic and functional α‐diversity. Spatial asynchrony was also important for regional stability and it was driven by both functional β‐diversity and metapopulation asynchrony, which in turn increased with spatial distance among communities. We observed a positive effect of temperature on functional α‐diversity and on local stability, whereas precipitation negatively influenced local diversity. Finally, spatial asynchrony contributed more to the regional stability of less mobile species compared to highly mobile ones, indicating that both extrinsic and intrinsic determinants of connectivity impact regional stability indirectly. Main Conclusions Our results demonstrate the importance of local and regional processes for regional stability. However, the relative contribution of spatial asynchrony and metapopulation asynchrony increases with connectivity loss, especially for less mobile species, indicating that landscape management should be tailored depending on the dispersal capacity of organisms. Both local biodiversity loss and regional biotic homogenization destabilize metacommunities, with potential implications for the reliable provision of ecosystem functions.
View
... For example, it has been shown in Puzin et al. (2019) that the dispersal of soil macroorganisms is influenced by their individual density and habitat availability at different spatial scales. Markfeld et al. (2022) showed that the impact of patch connectivity on soil arthropod diversity in the agricultural ecosystem is spatially dependent and the stability of metacommunities in different taxonomic groups varies with the spatial scales (Wisnoski et al., 2023). However, it is still unclear how the metacommunities of soil organisms vary with different spatial scales. ...
Soil nematode metacommunities in different land covers: Assessment at the local and regional scales
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2024
The metacommunity theory enhances our understanding of how ecological processes regulate community structure. Yet, unraveling the complexities of soil nematode metacommunity structures across various spatial scales and determining the factors influencing these patterns remains challenging. Therefore, we conducted an investigation on soil nematode metacommunities spanning from north to south in the Northeastern China. Our aim was to test whether nematode metacommunities were structured by different drivers under three land covers (i.e., farmland, grassland and woodland) at the local and regional scales. The results revealed that the Clementsian, Gleasonian and their quasi‐structures of soil nematodes collectively accounted for 93% of the variation across the three land covers at the local and regional scales. These structures suggest that the soil nematode metacommunities in the Northeast China responded to fluctuations in environmental gradients. At the local scale, metacommunities were primarily shaped by biological interactions. At the regional scale, environmental heterogeneity, dispersal limitation and biological interactions all contributed to nematode metacommunities. Meanwhile, biological interactions under three land covers were represented within different trophic groups, with plant parasites predominant in farmlands and bacterivores in grasslands and woodlands. In conclusion, the metacommunity structures of soil nematodes remain stable at different spatial scales and land covers. Biological interactions are widespread among nematodes regardless of changes in spatial scales and land covers. This study reveals the importance of nematode sensitivity to the environment and biological interactions in shaping the nematode metacommunities, potentially enhancing our understanding of the spatial patterns of nematode metacommunities.
View
Spatiotemporal patterns of diversity and diversity-stability relationships as a function of compounding disturbances and forest management
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2025
  • LANDSCAPE ECOL
Context Consistent with the diversity-stability hypothesis, high wildlife diversity has been associated with increased resilience and stability of ecosystem services and functions. Nevertheless, ecological non-stationarity associated with climate change challenges the concept of stability. Furthermore, ambiguity surrounding appropriate diversity metrics to use has hindered the ability of natural resource managers to leverage the potential benefits of biodiversity conservation. Objectives and methods We aimed to infer how diversity and compositional stability might be affected by multiple climate and disturbance stressors, including management activity. Methods We used a spatially explicit landscape succession model to predict spatiotemporal patterns of beta diversity for terrestrial vertebrates representing three trophic groups (herbivores, insectivores, and predators) over an 80-year time span. Results Trends in diversity were driven by species gains at higher elevations and species losses at lower elevations, however, species reorganization was modified by both mean species turnover (i.e. replacement of species across space) as well as management intensity. Higher species turnover was associated with greater among-site compositional stability and decreased local compositional change attributed to species losses for all trophic groups. Increasing management intensity further increased beta diversity across all elevations whereas decreasing management intensity led to spatial homogenization of herbivores and insectivores at low elevations. High management intensity also weakened naturally occurring diversity-stability relationships at larger spatial scales. Conclusions Increasing management intensity may be beneficial at lower elevations where projections anticipate species losses and homogenization. Additionally, conserving areas of high diversity will likely be important for promoting future compositional stability for trophic groups that support key ecological processes.
View
View
Environmental heterogeneity modulates the effect of plant diversity on the spatial variability of grassland biomass
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2023
Plant productivity varies due to environmental heterogeneity, and theory suggests that plant diversity can reduce this variation. While there is strong evidence of diversity effects on temporal variability of productivity, whether this mechanism extends to variability across space remains elusive. Here we determine the relationship between plant diversity and spatial variability of productivity in 83 grasslands, and quantify the effect of experimentally increased spatial heterogeneity in environmental conditions on this relationship. We found that communities with higher plant species richness (alpha and gamma diversity) have lower spatial variability of productivity as reduced abundance of some species can be compensated for by increased abundance of other species. In contrast, high species dissimilarity among local communities (beta diversity) is positively associated with spatial variability of productivity, suggesting that changes in species composition can scale up to affect productivity. Experimentally increased spatial environmental heterogeneity weakens the effect of plant alpha and gamma diversity, and reveals that beta diversity can simultaneously decrease and increase spatial variability of productivity. Our findings unveil the generality of the diversity-stability theory across space, and suggest that reduced local diversity and biotic homogenization can affect the spatial reliability of key ecosystem functions.
View
Universal beta-diversity–functioning relationships are neither observed nor expected
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2023
  • TRENDS ECOL EVOL
Widespread evidence shows that local species richness (α-diversity) loss hampers the biomass production and stability of ecosystems. β-Diversity, namely the variation of species compositions among different ecological communities, represents another important biodiversity component, but studies on how it drives ecosystem functioning show mixed results. We argue that to better understand the importance of β-diversity we need to consider it across contexts. We focus on three scenarios that cause gradients in β-diversity: changes in (i) abiotic heterogeneity, (ii) habitat isolation, and (iii) species pool richness. We show that across these scenarios we should not expect universally positive relationships between β-diversity, production, and ecosystem stability. Nevertheless, predictable relationships between β-diversity and ecosystem functioning do exist in specific contexts, and can reconcile seemingly contrasting empirical relationships.
View
Nitrogen enrichment alters multiple dimensions of grassland functional stability via changing compositional stability
Article
Full-text available
Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is known to alter the composition and functioning of plant communities. However, how nutrient enrichment influences multiple dimensions of community‐ and ecosystem‐level stability remains poorly understood. Using data from a nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition experiment in a temperate semi‐arid grassland that experienced a natural drought, we show that N enrichment, not P enrichment, decreased grassland functional and compositional temporal stability, resistance and recovery but increased functional and compositional resilience. Compositional stability and species asynchrony, rather than species diversity, were identified as key determinants of all dimensions of grassland functional stability, except for recovery. Whereas grassland functional recovery was decoupled from compositional recovery, N enrichment altered other dimensions of functional stability primarily through changing their corresponding compositional stability dimensions. Our findings highlight the need to examine ecological stability at the community level for a more mechanistic understanding of ecosystem dynamics in the face of environmental change.
View
Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2022
  • Nat. Ecol. Evol.
Biodiversity has widely been documented to enhance local community stability but whether such stabilizing effects of biodiversity extend to broader scales remains elusive. Here, we investigated the relationships between biodiversity and community stability in natural plant communities from quadrat (1 m2) to plot (400 m2) and regional (5−214 km2) scales and across broad climatic conditions, using an extensive plant community dataset from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that plant diversity provided consistent stabilizing effects on total community abundance across three nested spatial scales and climatic gradients. The strength of the stabilizing effects of biodiversity increased modestly with spatial scale and decreased as precipitation seasonality increased. Our findings illustrate the generality of diversity–stability theory across scales and climatic gradients, which provides a robust framework for understanding ecosystem responses to biodiversity and climate changes. Analysing >6,000 plant species from plots across the US National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the authors show that plant diversity consistently stabilizes community abundance across spatial scales and broad ecoclimatic domains, with the strength of the stabilizing effect increasing with scale.
View
Spatial asynchrony matters more than alpha stability in stabilizing ecosystem productivity in a large temperate forest region
Article
Full-text available
Aim Understanding the biodiversity–stability relationship has become a central issue in ecology and conservation biology. Although the stabilizing effects of tree species diversity on ecosystem productivity are well recorded in small local communities, they remain poorly understood across scales (from local to larger spatial scales). This study evaluates biodiversity–stability effects from local to larger spatial scales in a large temperate forest region, considering a range of environmental conditions and environmental heterogeneity. Location North‐eastern China (c. 700,000 km²). Time period 2005–2017. Major taxa studied Woody plants. Methods We define stability as the temporal invariability of biomass productivity. Regional metacommunities representing larger spatial scales were developed by aggregating multiple sets of local field plots. Simple regression analysis was used to test biodiversity–stability relationships in metacommunities. Piecewise structural equation modelling was then used to disentangle the effects of diversity and abiotic variables on forest stability at local and larger spatial scales. Multiple mixed‐effects regression models were used to determine the relative contribution of individual predictive variables to stability across spatial scales. Results We found that local diversity (alpha diversity) was positively related to the stability of local communities (alpha stability), whereas species turnover across space (beta diversity) was positively related to asynchronous dynamics among local communities (spatial asynchrony), regardless of whether abiotic factors were considered or not. We also found that environmental conditions and environmental heterogeneity affected forest stability across scales. The effect of spatial asynchrony on gamma stability was greater than that of alpha stability. Main conclusions Our results imply that spatial asynchrony is a key to maintaining the stability of ecosystem productivity within a large temperate forest region. We suggest that diverse forests and heterogeneous landscapes should be sustained at multiple spatial scales to buffer the negative effects of climate change and forest degradation.
View
Nutrients and herbivores impact grassland stability across spatial scales through different pathways
Article
Full-text available
Nutrients and herbivores are well‐known drivers of grassland diversity and stability in local communities. However, whether they interact to impact the stability of aboveground biomass and whether these effects depend on spatial scales remain unknown. It is also unclear whether nutrients and herbivores impact stability via different facets of plant diversity including species richness, evenness, and changes in community composition through time and space. We used a replicated experiment adding nutrients and excluding herbivores for 5 years in 34 global grasslands to explore these questions. We found that both nutrient addition and herbivore exclusion alone reduced stability at the larger spatial scale (aggregated local communities; gamma stability), but through different pathways. Nutrient addition reduced gamma stability primarily by increasing changes in local community composition over time, which was mainly driven by species replacement. Herbivore exclusion reduced gamma stability primarily by decreasing asynchronous dynamics among local communities (spatial asynchrony). Their interaction weakly increased gamma stability by increasing spatial asynchrony. Our findings indicate that disentangling the processes operating at different spatial scales may improve conservation and management aiming at maintaining the ability of ecosystems to reliably provide functions and services for humanity.
View
Species compositions mediate biomass conservation: The case of lake fish communities
Article
Full-text available
Environmental and geographical factors are known to influence the number, distribution, and combination of species that coexist within ecological communities. This, in turn, should influence ecosystem functions such as biomass conservation, or the ability of a community to sustain biomass from small to large organisms. We tested this hypothesis by assessing the role of environmental factors in determining how biomass is conserved in over 600 limnetic fish communities spread across a broad geographic gradient in Canada. Comprehensive and accurate information on water conditions and community characteristics such as taxonomy, abundance, biomass, and size distributions were used in our assessment. Results showed that species combinations emerge as one of the main predictors of biomass conservation among the effects of individual species and abiotic factors. Our study highlights the strong role that geographic patterns in the distribution of species can play in shaping key ecosystem functions, with consequences for ecosystem services such as the provision of harvestable fish biomass.
View
The dual nature of metacommunity variability
Article
Full-text available
There is increasing interest in measuring ecological stability to understand how communities and ecosystems respond to broad‐scale global changes. One of the most common approaches is to quantify the variation through time in community or ecosystem aggregate attributes (e.g. total biomass), referred to as aggregate variability. It is now widely recognized that aggregate variability represents only one aspect of communities and ecosystems, and compositional variability, the changes in the relative frequency of species in an assemblage, is equally important. Recent contributions have also begun to explore ecological stability at regional spatial scales, where interconnected local communities form metacommunities, a key concept in managing complex landscapes. However, the conceptual frameworks and measures of ecological stability in space have only focused on aggregate variability, leaving a conceptual gap. Here, we address this gap with a novel framework for quantifying the aggregate and compositional variability of communities and ecosystems through space and time. We demonstrate that the compositional variability of a metacommunity depends on the degree of spatial synchrony in compositional trajectories among local communities. We then provide a conceptual framework in which compositional variability of 1) the metacommunity through time and 2) among local communities combine into four archetype scenarios: spatial stasis (low/low), spatial synchrony (high/low), spatial asynchrony (high/high) and spatial compensation (low/high). We illustrate this framework based on numerical examples and a case study of a macroalgal metacommunity in which low spatial synchrony reduced variability in aggregate biomass at the metacommunity scale, while masking high spatial synchrony in compositional trajectories among local communities. Finally, we discuss the role of dispersal, environmental heterogeneity, species interactions and suggest future avenues. We believe this framework will be helpful for considering both aspects of variability simultaneously, which is important to better understand ecological stability in natural and complex landscapes in response to environmental changes.
View
ecocomDP: A flexible data design pattern for ecological community survey data
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2021
  • ECOL INFORM
The idea of harmonizing data is not new. Decades of amassing data in databases according to community standards - both locally and globally - have been more successful for some research domains than others. It is particularly difficult to harmonize data across studies where sampling protocols vary greatly and complex environmental conditions need to be understood to apply analytical methods correctly. However, a body of long-term ecological community observations is increasingly becoming publicly available and has been used in important studies. Here, we discuss an approach to preparing harmonized community survey data by an environmental data repository, in collaboration with a national observatory. The workflow framework and repository infrastructure are used to create a decentralized, asynchronous model to reformat data without altering original data through cleaning or aggregation, while retaining metadata about sampling methods and provenance, and enabling programmatic data access. This approach does not create another data ‘silo’ but will allow the repository to contribute subsets of available data to a variety of different analysis ready data preparation efforts. With certain limitations (e.g., changes to the sampling protocol over time), data updates and downstream processing may be completely automated. In addition to supporting reuse of community observation data by synthesis science, a goal for this harmonization and workflow effort is to contribute these datasets to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to increase the data's discovery and use.
View