Historical foundations and future directions in macrosystems ecology

Rose, Kevin C.; Graves, Rose A.; Hansen, Winslow D.; Harvey, Brian; Qiu, Jiangxiao; Wood, Stephen A.; Ziter, Carly; Turner, Monica G.

doi:10.1111/ele.12717

Cited by 52 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 123 publications

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“…The role of variability in structuring ecological communities and processes has long been recognized (Kolasa and Pickett , Levin , Benedetti‐Cecchi , Rose et al. ). Consistent with our hypothesis, we found a significant positive relationship between spatial heterogeneity and temporal heterogeneity using a diverse suite of aquatic and terrestrial data sets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal heterogeneity increases with spatial heterogeneity in ecological communities

Collins

Avolio

Gries

et al. 2018

Ecology

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Heterogeneity is increasingly recognized as a foundational characteristic of ecological systems. Under global change, understanding temporal community heterogeneity is necessary for predicting the stability of ecosystem functions and services. Indeed, spatial heterogeneity is commonly used in alternative stable state theory as a predictor of temporal heterogeneity and therefore an early indicator of regime shifts. To evaluate whether spatial heterogeneity in species composition is predictive of temporal heterogeneity in ecological communities, we analyzed 68 community data sets spanning freshwater and terrestrial systems where measures of species abundance were replicated over space and time. Of the 68 data sets, 55 (81%) had a weak to strongly positive relationship between spatial and temporal heterogeneity, while in the remaining communities the relationship was weak to strongly negative (19%). Based on a mixed model analysis, we found a significant but weak overall positive relationship between spatial and temporal heterogeneity across all data sets combined, and within aquatic and terrestrial data sets separately. In addition, lifespan and successional stage were negatively and positively related to temporal heterogeneity, respectively. We conclude that spatial heterogeneity may be a predictor of temporal heterogeneity in ecological communities, and that this relationship may be a general property of many terrestrial and aquatic communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until recently, however, a lack of available ecological data has limited our ability to determine if a general relationship exists across scales between spatial heterogeneity and the degree to which communities change over time (temporal heterogeneity; Rose et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal heterogeneity increases with spatial heterogeneity in ecological communities

Collins

Avolio

Gries

et al. 2018

Ecology

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“…Therefore, macroscale freshwater research that integrates across lakes, wetlands, and streams and studies both biotic and abiotic properties has the potential to greatly contribute to ecological understanding and prediction in the face of global threats (Chaloner and Wotton , Rose et al. , Stanley and del Giorgio ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers and spatial structure of abiotic and biotic properties of lakes, wetlands, and streams at the national scale

King

Cheruvelil

Pollard

2019

Ecological Applications

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Broad‐scale studies have improved our ability to make predictions about how freshwater biotic and abiotic properties will respond to changes in climate and land use intensification. Further, fine‐scaled studies of lakes, wetlands, or streams have documented the important role of hydrologic connections for understanding many freshwater biotic and abiotic processes. However, lakes, wetlands, and streams are typically studied in isolation of one another at both fine and broad scales. Therefore, it is not known whether these three freshwater types (lakes, wetlands, and streams) respond similarly to ecosystem and watershed drivers nor how they may respond to future global stresses. In this study, we asked, do lake, wetland, and stream biotic and abiotic properties respond to similar ecosystem and watershed drivers and have similar spatial structure at the national scale? We answered this question with three U.S. conterminous data sets of freshwater ecosystems. We used random forest (RF) analysis to quantify the multi‐scaled drivers related to variation in nutrients and biota in lakes, wetlands, and streams simultaneously; we used semivariogram analysis to quantify the spatial structure of biotic and abiotic properties and to infer possible mechanisms controlling the ecosystem properties of these freshwater types. We found that abiotic properties responded to similar drivers, had large ranges of spatial autocorrelation, and exhibited multi‐scale spatial structure, regardless of freshwater type. However, the dominant drivers of variation in biotic properties depended on freshwater type and had smaller ranges of spatial autocorrelation. Our study is the first to document that drivers and spatial structure differ more between biotic and abiotic variables than across freshwater types, suggesting that some properties of freshwater ecosystems may respond similarly to future global changes.

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“…There is a growing need to understand how regional to global changes will affect ecosystem processes and the services they provide at the macroscale (Clark et al, ; Heffernan et al, ; Qiu & Turner, ). In response to this need, frameworks and approaches have been developed to study ecosystem processes and patterns across spatial extents (Heffernan et al, ; Levy et al, ; Rose et al, ; Soranno et al, ). Such multi‐scaled analyses, however, have rarely been grounded in empirical studies, owing in part to a lack of fine‐resolution data on ecosystem properties in the many thousands of ecosystems across regions and continents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Similarity in spatial structure constrains ecosystem relationships: Building a macroscale understanding of lakes

Lapierre

Collins

Seekell

et al. 2018

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim We aimed to measure the dominant spatial patterns in ecosystem properties (such as nutrients and measures of primary production) and the multi‐scaled geographical driver variables of these properties and to quantify how the spatial structure of pattern in all of these variables influences the strength of relationships among them. Location and time period We studied > 8,500 lakes in a 1.8 million km2 area of Northeast U.S.A. Data comprised 10‐year medians (2002–2011) for measured ecosystem properties, long‐term climate averages and recent land use/land cover variables. Major taxa studied We focused on ecosystem properties at the base of aquatic food webs, including concentrations of nutrients and algal pigments that are proxies of primary productivity. Methods We quantified spatial structure in ecosystem properties and their geographical driver variables using distance‐based Moran eigenvector maps (dbMEMs). We then compared the similarity in spatial structure for all pairs of variables with the correlation between variables to illustrate how spatial structure constrains relationships among ecosystem properties. Results The strength of spatial structure decreased in order for climate, land cover/use, lake ecosystem properties and lake and landscape morphometry. Having a comparable spatial structure is a necessary condition to observe a strong relationship between a pair of variables, but not a sufficient one; variables with very different spatial structure are never strongly correlated. Lake ecosystem properties tended to have an intermediary spatial structure compared with that of their main drivers, probably because climate and landscape variables with known ecological links induce spatial patterns. Main conclusion Our empirical results describe inherent spatial constraints that dictate the expected relationships between ecosystem properties and their geographical drivers at macroscales. Our results also suggest that understanding the spatial scales at which ecological processes operate is necessary to predict the effects of multi‐scaled environmental changes on ecosystem properties.

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Historical foundations and future directions in macrosystems ecology

Cited by 52 publications

References 123 publications

Temporal heterogeneity increases with spatial heterogeneity in ecological communities

Temporal heterogeneity increases with spatial heterogeneity in ecological communities

Drivers and spatial structure of abiotic and biotic properties of lakes, wetlands, and streams at the national scale

Similarity in spatial structure constrains ecosystem relationships: Building a macroscale understanding of lakes

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