Environmental Fluctuations Induce Scale‐dependent Compensation and Increase Stability in Plankton Ecosystems

Abstract

The temporal stability of aggregate community and ecosystem properties is influenced by the variability of component populations, the interactions among populations, and the influence of environmental fluctuations on populations. Environmental fluctuations that enhance population variability are generally expected to destabilize community and ecosystem properties, but this will depend on the degree to which populations are synchronized in their dynamics. Here we use seminatural experimental ponds to show that reduced synchrony among zooplankton taxa increases the temporal stability of zooplankton density, abundance, and ecosystem productivity in fluctuating environments. However, asynchrony only occurs at long timescales (;80-day periods) and under recurring environmental perturbations. At shorter timescales (;10-day periods) and in constant environments, synchronous dynamics dominate. Our findings support recent theory indicating that compensatory dynamics can stabilize communities and ecosystems. They further indicate that environmental fluctuations can enhance the likelihood of long-period asynchrony and thus stabilize community and ecosystem properties despite their short term destabilizing effects.

Environmental change and declining resource availability for small‐mammal communities in the Great Basin

“…While we recognize that our data set is not suitable for directly testing time-scale-sensitive patterns of synchrony or compensation (Keitt and Fischer 2006, Downing et al 2008, Keitt 2008, we suggest that that the pattern we documented in the Ruby Mountains is likely to be representative of long-term dynamics under conditions of chronic resource alteration (Smith et al 2009). …”

“…Thus outcomes from discrete disturbance scenarios may not be informative in forecasting expectations of faunal change under future environmental scenarios (Smith et al 2009). In fact, recent models and experiments show much variability in the responses of aggregate properties depending on the type, frequency, and time scale of disturbance (Vasseur and Fox 2007, Downing et al 2008, Keitt 2008. Furthermore, compensatory dynamics in natural communities may occur less frequently than previously thought (e.g., Houlahan et al 2007, Mutshinda et al 2009), and the diversitystability relationship may be multifaceted and dependent on the context of the perturbation (Ives and Carpenter 2007).…”

Synchronous dynamics of zooplankton competitors prevail in temperate lake ecosystems

“…Unlike previous work that used methods sensitive to only the dominant mode of variation and produced a measure of variability averaged across time, our analysis parses out the effect of variation occurring at different timescales and during different time periods. Although scale-and time-resolving methods have become commonplace in understanding patterns of species covariation [17,18,20,44], ours is the first analysis to seek patterns across broad spatial and temporal scales. We found evidence for widespread synchronous dynamics at a broad range of times and scales, while compensatory dynamics were relatively rare and incoherently distributed among different times and scales in our study lakes.…”

“…Many studies have measured the synchrony of competitors in experiments and nature [3,7,17 -20] and some have attempted to infer the relative contributions of competition and environmental factors in these communities [1,3,20]. For example, using annual census of terrestrial plants and animals, Houlahan et al [3] found that species are on average synchronized and suggested that environmental drivers were relatively more important than competition for shaping community dynamics.…”

Species traits and species diversity affect community stability in a multiple stressor framework

“…by the insurance model (Yachi & Loreau 1999), which bases diversity effects on the fact that diverse communities are more likely to show compensatory dynamics than communities of low biodiversity. Although compensatory dynamics in response to environmental fluctuation has been analysed in natural systems (Vasseur & Gaedke 2007, Winfree & Kremen 2009) and experiments (Gonzalez & De s campsJulien 2004, Downing 2008, there is considerable debate as to whether compensatory dynamics generally prevail in ecosystems (Houlahan et al 2007, Valone & Barber 2008.…”