Improving our understanding of stability across spatial scales is crucial in the current scenario of biodiversity loss. Still, most empirical studies of stability target small scales. We experimentally removed the local space‐dominant species (macroalgae, barnacles, or mussels) at eight sites spanning more than 1000 km of coastline in north‐ and south‐central Chile, and quantified the relationship between area (the number of aggregated sites) and stability in aggregate community variables (total cover) and taxonomic composition. Resistance, recovery, and invariability increased nonlinearly with area in both functional and compositional domains. Yet, the functioning of larger areas achieved a better, albeit still incomplete, recovery than composition. Compared with controls, smaller disturbed areas tended to overcompensate in terms of total cover. These effects were related to enhanced available space for recruitment (resulting from the removal of the dominant species), and to increasing beta diversity and decaying community‐level spatial synchrony (resulting from increasing area). This study provides experimental evidence for the pivotal role of spatial scale in the ability of ecosystems to resist and recover from chronic disturbances. This knowledge can inform further ecosystem restoration and conservation policies.

Understanding latitudinal variations in biodiversity is central for biogeography. Along the coasts of the Southeast Pacific, several taxa show inverse latitudinal patterns of biodiversity, i.e. increasing species numbers from lower to higher latitudes. A plausible explanation for these patterns is that fjords, formed during the Pleistocene glaciations, increased the diversity of available biotopes that allowed for higher diversity in high latitudes. Assessing this hypothesis requires us to analyze latitudinal patterns of functional diversity (which is intimately related to niche use) in the absence of fjords, i.e. earlier than their formation.Here we test if the fossil record before the generation of fjords shows higher functional diversity at lower than at higher latitudes (a 'regular' functional diversity gradient).We analyzed four components of functional diversity (functional richness, functional divergence, functional dispersion and functional evenness) for a fossil marine mollusk fauna from the lower Miocene (~18 million years ago) across four regions spanning more than 10 latitudinal degrees of the Chilean coast (between ~34°S and 45°S).The functional richness of gastropods and bivalves decreased non-linearly from low to high latitudes. Contrarily, the functional evenness of gastropods remained relatively constant across the region and that of bivalves peaked at 45°S. The functional divergence and functional dispersion of taxonomic groups did not exhibit clear patterns of latitudinal variation. The multivariate analysis uncovered non-linear latitudinal patterns in the abundance of functional groups (gastropods and bivalves), with the largest abundance towards lower latitudes.These results suggest that the niche breadth of mollusk assemblages might have decreased with latitude in the lower Miocene. This work can shed light on the mechanisms underlying the latitudinal variation of diversity observed today, offering a better understanding of how these patterns changed over time.

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