No abstract

Disturbance and foundation species can both have strong impacts on ecosystem structure and function, but studies of their interacting effects are hindered by the long life spans and slow growth of most foundation species. Here, we investigated the extent to which foundation species may mediate the impacts of disturbance on ecological communities, using the kelp forest ecosystem as a study system. Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) grows rapidly and experiences wave disturbance from winter storms. We developed and analyzed a model of the effects of variable storm regimes on giant kelp population dynamics and of the cascading effects on kelp-mediated competition between benthic community members in kelp forests. Simulations of severe storm regimes resulted in a greater abundance of understory macroalgae and a lower abundance of sessile invertebrates than did milder regimes. Both the cascading effects of periodic loss of giant kelp as well as the degree to which storms directly impacted the benthos (in the form of scouring) influenced the outcome of competition between benthic community members. The model's qualitative predictions were consistent with empirical data from a 20-yr time series of community dynamics, suggesting that interannual variability in disturbance that affects giant kelp abundance can have strong consequences for benthic community structure. Our findings point to the value of long-term studies in elucidating the interacting effects of disturbance and foundation species.

Coral reefs are increasingly experiencing stressful conditions, such as high temperatures, that cause corals to undergo bleaching, a process where they lose their photosynthetic algal symbionts. Bleaching threatens both corals’ survival and the health of the reef ecosystems they create. One possible mechanism for corals to resist bleaching is through association with stress-tolerant symbionts, which are resistant to bleaching but may be worse partners in mild conditions. Some corals have been found to associate with multiple symbiont species simultaneously, which potentially gives them access to the benefits of both stress-sensitive and -tolerant symbionts. However, within-host competition between symbionts may lead to competitive exclusion of one partner, and the consequences of associating with multiple partners simultaneously are not well understood. We modify a mechanistic model of coral-algal symbiosis to investigate the effect of environmental conditions on within-host competitive dynamics between stress-sensitive and -tolerant symbionts and the effect of access to a tolerant symbiont on the dynamics of recovery from bleaching. We found that the addition of a tolerant symbiont can increase host survival and recovery from bleaching in high-light conditions. Competitive exclusion of the tolerant symbiont occurred slowly at intermediate light levels. Interestingly, there were some cases of post-bleaching competitive exclusion after the tolerant symbiont had helped the host recover.

Dynamic Energy Budget models relate whole organism processes such as growth, reproduction and mortality to suborganismal metabolic processes. Much of their potential derives from extensions of the formalism to describe the exchange of metabolic products between organisms or organs within a single organism, for example the mutualism between corals and their symbionts. Without model simplification, such models are at risk of becoming parameter-rich and hence impractical. One natural simplification is to assume that some metabolic processes act on ‘fast’ timescales relative to others. A common strategy for formulating such models is to assume that ‘fast’ processes equilibrate immediately, while ‘slow’ processes are described by ordinary differential equations. This strategy can bring a subtlety with it. What if there are multiple, interdependent fast processes that have multiple equilibria, so that additional information is needed to unambiguously specify the model dynamics? This situation can easily arise in contexts where an organism or community can persist in a ‘healthy’ or an ‘unhealthy’ state with abrupt transitions between states possible. To approach this issue, we offer the following: (a) a method to unambiguously complete implicitly defined models by adding hypothetical ‘fast’ state variables; (b) an approach for minimizing the number of additional state variables in such models, which can simplify the numerical analysis and give insights into the model dynamics; and (c) some implications of the new approach that are of practical importance for model dynamics, e.g. on the bistability of flux dynamics and the effect of different initialization choices on model outcomes. To demonstrate those principles, we use a simplified model for root-shoot dynamics of plants and a related model for the interactions between corals and endosymbiotic algae that describes coral bleaching and recovery.