Dormancy in Metacommunities

Abstract

Although metacommunity ecology has improved our understanding of how dispersal affects community structure and dynamics across spatial scales, it has yet to adequately account for dormancy. Dormancy is a reversible state of reduced metabolic activity that enables temporal dispersal within the metacommunity. Dormancy is also a metacommunity-level process because it can covary with spatial dispersal and affect diversity across spatial scales. We develop a framework to integrate dispersal and dormancy, focusing on the covariation they exhibit, to predict how dormancy modifies the importance of species interactions, dispersal, and historical contingencies in metacommunities. We used empirical and modeling approaches to demonstrate the utility of this framework. We examined case studies of microcrustaceans in ephemeral ponds, where dormancy underlies metacommunity dynamics, and identified constraints on the dispersal and dormancy strategies of bromeliad-dwelling invertebrates. Using simulations, we showed that dormancy can alter classic metacommunity patterns of diversity in ways that depend on dispersal-dormancy covariation and spatiotemporal environmental variability. We propose that dormancy may also facilitate evolution-mediated priority effects if locally adapted seed banks prevent colonization by more dispersal-limited species. Last, we present testable predictions for the implications of dormancy in metacommunities, some of which may fundamentally alter our understanding of metacommunity ecology.

Effects of the Temporal Scale of Observation on the Analysis of Aquatic Invertebrate Metacommunities

“…Additionally, priority effects can also strongly influence the relevance of temporal factors in metacommunities (Fukami, 2015). As a process that is basically temporal, we can emulate historic and priority effects considering resistant stages to adverse transient environments (Wisnoski et al, 2019) and/or setting different inter-specific competition parameters for the modeled species (Thompson et al, 2020). Despite all these limitations, our model provides a general view of the effects of the temporal scale of observation on understanding metacommunity dynamics and methodological problems related to its study.…”

Spatial context strongly affects community composition of both passively and actively dispersing pool invertebrates in a highly heterogeneous landscape

“…Pool age did not seem to affect the species composition or richness of any group with the exception of hemipterans in very large pools. This might have been at least partly caused by strong priority effects (Allen, VanDyke, & Cáceres, ; Pu & Jiang, ) that limit the colonization success of later arrivals, especially in the metacommunities of organisms capable of entering dormant stages (Wisnoski, Leibold, & Lennon, ).…”

Environment and Space Rule, but Time Also Matters for the Organization of Tropical Pond Metacommunities

“…Desiccation is a major evolutionary pressure in temporary water bodies, where habitat availability changes cyclically, sometimes unpredictably, and organisms are adapted to this desiccation by means of different life-cycle strategies: while some organisms resist drought in the sediment (resting eggs, anhydrobiosis, seeds, etc. ), some others need to abandon the habitat and recolonize from neighboring waterbodies (Brendonck and De Meester, 2003;Richter-Boix et al, 2011;Olmo et al, 2012;Brendonck et al, 2017;Wisnoski et al, 2019). As a consequence, some traits such as generation time, type of dispersal or survival strategy toward desiccation may influence temporal dynamics, which in turn may strongly regulate metacommunity composition (Boix et al, 2004;Holt et al, 2005;Fernandes et al, 2014;Castillo-Escrivà et al, 2017c).…”