Maintenance of community function through compensation breaks down over time in a desert rodent community

Diaz, Renata M.; Ernest, S. K. Morgan

doi:10.1101/2021.10.01.462799

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…We also performed exploratory work on the reproductive phenology of C. penicillatus at different time periods of C. baileyi establishment in the site. C. baileyi colonized the site in 1995, causing major shifts in resource use and the competitive landscape, especially for C. penicillatus (Bledsoe and Ernest 2019, Diaz and Ernest 2022). To assess the effect of the shift in the competitive landscape caused by this natural experiment, we also built simpler models (without terms for competition) for all species-, sex-, and treatment-specific datasets to determine the relative importance of these terms in explaining variation in breeding proportions.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifts in competitive structures can drive variation in species’ phenology

Dumandan

Yenni

Ernest

2022

Preprint

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Characterizing patterns and drivers of species responses to various environmental contexts is useful in determining their adaptive capacity to the consequences of ongoing global environmental change. For many species, a well-documented response to anthropogenic climate change is a shift in the timing of their key life-history events or phenology. Often, these phenological shifts are associated with changes in abiotic factors used as proxies for resource availability or other suitable conditions. However, less is known about how species interactions that can lead to resource limitation influence phenological responses. Using long-term experimental data on small mammals monitored in the southwestern United States, we show that altered competitive landscapes can drive shifts in breeding timing and duration, and that, relative to a dominant competitor, other species exhibit less specific responses to environmental factors. These results suggest that plasticity of phenological responses, that is often described in the context of annual variation in abiotic factors, can occur in response to biotic context as well. Additionally, in response to competitive pressures, species may employ adaptive strategies, such as low phenological synchrony, to compensate for the adverse demographic impacts of mismatched resource and species phenology. Variation in phenological responses under different biotic conditions shown here further demonstrate that shifting biotic interactions are rampantly occurring in many natural systems and a more nuanced understanding of its impacts on population dynamics is useful to better understand and predict biodiversity patterns in a changing world.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifts in competitive structures can drive variation in species’ phenology

Dumandan

Yenni

Ernest

2022

Preprint

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“…These studies typically conclude that more species are required to sustain ecosystem function at larger scales because different species drive functioning in different habitats, at different times or in different places. However, none of these studies conclusively show that one or a few species could not maintain function across different habitats, times or places as this requires understanding which species may or may not be able to compensate for the loss of others (Chaves and Smith 2021, Pan et al 2021, Diaz and Ernest 2022). Thus, it is still unclear whether more species are required to sustain ecosystem function as we increase spatial scale and, therefore, habitat heterogeneity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling‐up the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship: the effect of environmental heterogeneity on transgressive overyielding

Gamfeldt

Hagan

Farewell

et al. 2023

Oikos

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Knowledge of how biodiversity sustains ecosystem function comes predominantly from studies focused on small spatial scales. Thus, we know relatively little about the role of biodiversity at larger scales of space and time where habitats become increasingly heterogeneous. Efforts to upscale the relationship between biodiversity and function have yielded inconclusive results. Given that increasing habitat heterogeneity is a ubiquitous consequence of increasing spatial scale, we asked: as habitat heterogeneity increases, can single species continue to maintain ecosystem function? Or, does transgressive overyielding (functioning of species mixture divided by the functioning of the highest functioning single species) change with habitat heterogeneity? We addressed this using a combination of computer simulations, an experiment and a meta‐analysis. The three parts followed the same rationale: habitat heterogeneity was increased by aggregating local habitats with different conditions into larger and more heterogeneous landscapes. The computer simulations showed that, on average, transgressive overyielding increased with habitat heterogeneity because monoculture functioning decreased with habitat heterogeneity. We tested this expectation experimentally by varying the strain richness from one to five species across 10800 bacterial communities in five different habitats defined by sub‐inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics. On average, the experimental results concurred with the simulations. We tested the generality of this result using a meta‐analysis of 26 published experiments that manipulated habitat conditions and species richness. This confirmed that transgressive overyielding tended to increase with habitat heterogeneity but only when species were specialised to different habitats and were not inhibited in mixtures by negative species interactions. This was not the case in several experiments used in our meta‐analysis where one species maximised functioning across all habitats, contrary to the assumptions of many ecological models. Our results illustrate the importance of biodiversity at larger spatial scales with more heterogeneity but also highlights contingencies that this pattern depends on.

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Maintenance of community function through compensation breaks down over time in a desert rodent community

Cited by 2 publications

References 35 publications

Shifts in competitive structures can drive variation in species’ phenology

Shifts in competitive structures can drive variation in species’ phenology

Scaling‐up the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship: the effect of environmental heterogeneity on transgressive overyielding

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