Bioclimatic context of species' populations determines community stability

Evans, Luke C.; Melero, Yolanda; Schmucki, Reto; Boersch‐Supan, Philipp H.; Brotóns, Lluís; Fontaine, Colin; Jiguet, Frédéric; Kuussaari, Mikko; Massimino, Dario; Robinson, Robert A.; Roy, David B.; Schweiger, Oliver; Settele, Josef; Stefanescu, Constantí; Turnhout, C.A.M. van; Oliver, Tom H.

doi:10.1111/geb.13527

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 109 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Alternatively, tropical niche‐conservatism suggests that insect groups originating in the tropics require adaptation to factors like freezing that occur in cooler temperate climates (Wiens & Donoghue, 2004) limiting species distributions. The UK and Finland are at the northern range limits of many species owing to their cooler climates (Warren et al, 2001) and it is possible a single niche‐dimension, such as temperature (Evans et al, 2022; Melero et al, 2022) or evapotranspiration rates (Hawkins, 2010; Hawkins & Porter, 2003), may disproportionately influence persistence, particularly during extreme events. This would reduce species in the UK and Finland to an adaptable and resilient subset of the wider European assemblage (Thomas, 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Species at the edge of their niche may also have lower average population stability (Mills et al, 2017; Oliver et al, 2012) and species with larger niche breadths may be more robust to local environmental variation. Finally, when a site is in a different niche position for two species, they may have differing responses to environmental variation at the site (Evans et al, 2022)—reducing temporal synchrony in population dynamics (hereon referred to simply as synchrony).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mechanisms underpinning community stability along a latitudinal gradient: Insights from a niche‐based approach

Evans

Melero

Schmucki

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

At large scales, the mechanisms underpinning stability in natural communities may vary in importance due to changes in species composition, mean abundance, and species richness. Here we link species characteristics (niche positions) and community characteristics (richness and abundance) to evaluate the importance of stability mechanisms in 156 butterfly communities monitored across three European countries and spanning five bioclimatic regions. We construct niche-based hierarchical structural Bayesian models to explain first differences in abundance, population stability, and species richness between the countries, and then explore how these factors impact community stability both directly and indirectly (via synchrony and population stability). Species richness was partially explained by the position of a site relative to the niches of the species pool, and species near the centre of their niche had higher

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms underpinning community stability along a latitudinal gradient: Insights from a niche‐based approach

Evans

Melero

Schmucki

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To describe all results, we use evidence language (Muff et al, 2022), with 'evidence' for an effect if the 95% posterior uncertainty intervals exclude zero, weak evidence if 80% uncertainty intervals exclude zero, and no evidence if 80% uncertainty intervals contain zero (Evans et al, 2023). We found evidence of positive correlations between the population change scores for blue tits and the mean abundance of all moth groups (Figure 1b,e,h; Tables S1-S11).…”

Section: R E Su Lt S Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national‐scale monitoring data

Evans,

Burgess,

Potts

et al. 2024

Ecology Letters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Insects are key components of food chains, and monitoring data provides new opportunities to identify trophic relationships at broad spatial and temporal scales. Here, combining two monitoring datasets from Great Britain, we reveal how the population dynamics of the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus are influenced by the abundance of moths – a core component of their breeding diet. We find that years with increased population growth for blue tits correlate strongly with high moth abundance, but population growth in moths and birds is less well correlated; suggesting moth abundance directly affects bird population change. Next, we identify moths that are important components of blue tit diet, recovering associations to species previously identified as key food sources such as the winter moth Operoptera brumata. Our work provides new evidence that insect abundance impacts bird population dynamics in natural communities and provides insight into spatial diet turnover at a national‐scale.

show abstract

“…Plant diversity is considered as a key indicator to measure community stability, because ecosystem function and structure are increasingly vulnerable to the threat of biodiversity loss ( Evans et al, 2022 ). However, the vast majority of previous studies used species diversity to assess community stability ( Sasaki and Lauenroth, 2011 ; Craven et al, 2018 ; Liu et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Different contributions of plant diversity and soil properties to the community stability in the arid desert ecosystem

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As a one of the focuses of ecological research, understanding the regulation of plant diversity on community stability is helpful to reveal the adaption of plant to environmental changes. However, the relationship between plant diversity and community stability is still controversial due to the scale effect of its influencing factors. In this study, we compared the changes in community stability and different plant diversity (i.e., species, functional, and phylogenetic diversities) between three communities (i.e., riparian forest, ecotone community, and desert shrubs), and across three spatial scales (i.e., 100, 400, and 2500 m2), and then quantified the contribution of soil properties and plant diversity to community stability by using structural equation model (SEM) in the Ebinur Lake Basin Nature Reserve of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the NW China. The results showed that: (1) community stability differed among three communities (ecotone community > desert shrubs > riparian forest). The stability of three communities all decreased with the increase of spatial scale (2) species diversity, phylogenetic richness and the mean pairwise phylogenetic distance were higher in ecotone community than that in desert shrubs and riparian forest, while the mean nearest taxa distance showed as riparian forest > ecotone community > desert shrubs. (3) Soil ammonium nitrogen and total phosphorus had the significant direct negative and positive effects on the community stability, respectively. Soil ammonium nitrogen and total phosphorus also indirectly affected community stability by adjusting plant diversity. The interaction among species, functional and phylogenetic diversities also regulated the variation of community stability across the spatial scales. Our results suggested that the effect of plant diversities on community stability were greater than that of soil factors. The asynchronous effect caused by the changes in species composition and functional traits among communities had a positive impact on the stability. Our study provided a theoretical support for the conservation and management of biodiversity and community functions in desert areas.

show abstract

Bioclimatic context of species' populations determines community stability

Cited by 5 publications

References 109 publications

Mechanisms underpinning community stability along a latitudinal gradient: Insights from a niche‐based approach

Mechanisms underpinning community stability along a latitudinal gradient: Insights from a niche‐based approach

Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national‐scale monitoring data

Different contributions of plant diversity and soil properties to the community stability in the arid desert ecosystem

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About