Ecological non-monotonicity and its effects on complexity and stability of populations, communities and ecosystems

Zhang, Zhibin; Yan, Chuan; Stenseth, Nils Chr.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.06.004

Cited by 44 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Non‐monotonic relationships are increasingly important in ecology (Zhang, Yan, Krebs, & Stenseth, ). A non‐monotonic effect of an environmental variable on a population variable may modify the extents to which Moran effects can occur and the geographies of synchrony of the environmental and population variables match.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A global geography of synchrony for terrestrial vegetation

Defriez

Reuman

2017

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim: Previous work demonstrated a pronounced geography of synchrony for marine phytoplankton and used that geography to infer statistical environmental determinants of synchrony. Here, we determine whether terrestrial vegetation (measured by the enhanced vegetation index, EVI) also shows a geography of synchrony and we infer determinants of EVI synchrony. As vegetation is the basis of the terrestrial food web, changes in spatio-temporal vegetation dynamics may have major consequences.Location: The land. Results: The first main result is that there is a pronounced and previously unrecognized geography of synchrony for terrestrial vegetation. Some areas, such as the Sahara and Southern Africa, exhibited nearly perfect synchrony, whereas other areas, such as the Pacific coast of South America, showed very little synchrony. Spatial modelling provided the second main result, namely that synchrony in temperature and precipitation were major determinants of synchrony in EVI, supporting the presence of dual global Moran effects. These effects depended on the time-scales on which synchrony was assessed, providing our third main result, namely that synchrony of EVI and its geography are time-scale specific.Main conclusions: To our knowledge, this study is the first to document the geography of synchrony in terrestrial vegetation. We showed that geographical variation in synchrony is pronounced. We used geographical patterns to identify determinants of synchrony. This study is one of very few studies to demonstrate two separate synchronous environmental variables driving synchrony simultaneously. The geography of synchrony is apparently a major phenomenon that has been little explored.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Non-monotonic relationships are increasingly important in ecology (Zhang, Yan, Krebs, & Stenseth, 2015). Although temperature and precipitation are key drivers of primary productivity, which of these is more important can differ among biomes (Nemani et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A global geography of synchrony for terrestrial vegetation

Defriez

Reuman

2017

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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“…Variability in species interactions (i.e. non-monotonicity, Zhang et al 2015) may thus be an important yet previously overlooked mechanism that can promote ecosystem stability in response to climate variability. Models predicting the effects of future precipitation regimes on ecosystems thus need to account for the role of biotic interactions in ecosystem responses (Lavergne et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation alters interactions in a grassland ecological community

Deguines

Brashares

Prugh

2017

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Climate change is transforming precipitation regimes world-wide. Changes in precipitation regimes are known to have powerful effects on plant productivity, but the consequences of these shifts for the dynamics of ecological communities are poorly understood. This knowledge gap hinders our ability to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. Precipitation may affect fauna through direct effects on physiology, behaviour or demography, through plant-mediated indirect effects, or by modifying interactions among species. In this paper, we examined the response of a semi-arid ecological community to a fivefold change in precipitation over 7 years. We examined the effects of precipitation on the dynamics of a grassland ecosystem in central California from 2007 to 2013. We conducted vegetation surveys, pitfall trapping of invertebrates, visual surveys of lizards and capture-mark-recapture surveys of rodents on 30 plots each year. We used structural equation modelling to evaluate the direct, indirect and modifying effects of precipitation on plants, ants, beetles, orthopterans, kangaroo rats, ground squirrels and lizards. We found pervasive effects of precipitation on the ecological community. Although precipitation increased plant biomass, direct effects on fauna were often stronger than plant-mediated effects. In addition, precipitation altered the sign or strength of consumer-resource and facilitative interactions among the faunal community such that negative or neutral interactions became positive or vice versa with increasing precipitation. These findings indicate that precipitation influences ecological communities in multiple ways beyond its recognized effects on primary productivity. Stochastic variation in precipitation may weaken the average strength of biotic interactions over time, thereby increasing ecosystem stability and resilience to climate change.

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“…Although many studies have incorporated various density-dependent functional responses to adjust interaction strength in ecological networks (Nunney 1980, Abrams and Allison 1982, Kondoh 2003, Kawatsu and Kondoh 2018, the type of interaction was usually fixed or only shifted between non-neutral and neutral effects. The assumption of fixed interaction types may have overlooked the context-dependent mechanisms underlying interaction transitions (Thompson 1988) and hindered us from a full understanding of ecosystem stability (Zhang et al 2015). Recent studies have used theoretical or empirical ecological networks to show that variety or a combination of interaction types could have a remarkable impact on the stability of community dynamics (Melián et al 2009, Allesina and Tang 2012, Kéfi et al 2012, Mougi and Kondoh 2012, Suweis et al 2014, García-Callejas et al 2018, Gracia-Lázaro et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study, by using the bidirectional consumer-resource (BCR) model proposed by Holland and DeAngelis (2009), we hope to further investigate how the consumer-resource (CR) interaction transition affects network persistence (a measure of stability) and long-term outcomes of species interactions in ecological networks. The interaction transition was generally believed to change the interaction signs (+, − or 0) between two species (Zhang et al 2015). In previous studies, the interaction transition was investigated in the context of density-dependency for a given model structure (Hernandez 1998, Zhang 2003.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of consumer–resource interaction transitions on persistence and long‐term interaction outcomes of random ecological networks

Yan

Zhang

2019

Oikos

Self Cite

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Despite the prevalence of context‐dependent interaction transitions in ecological systems, their impacts on persistence and interaction diversity have scarcely been explored in complex ecological networks. By using multispecies bi‐directional and unidirectional consumer–resource models, representing a continuum of interaction transitions (sign change of interaction outcomes), we investigated the effects of structural interaction transitions on persistence (the fraction of remaining species) and long‐term interaction outcomes in random ecological networks. We found that high interaction strength of exploiting resources generally decreased persistence, and high strength of providing resources increased persistence when the strength of exploiting resources was low in more complex networks; also, the networks with high persistence had a high proportion of mutualistic interactions relative to antagonistic interactions present initially and over the long term. The shifting of interaction strengths shaped the long‐term interaction compositions. Meanwhile, population dynamics, especially species extinction, affected the difference between initial and long‐term interactions. Based on classical consumer–resource theory, these results establish a transitional continuum of interaction outcomes in ecological networks and imply a theoretical association among interaction transition, community persistence and interaction diversity.

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Ecological non-monotonicity and its effects on complexity and stability of populations, communities and ecosystems

Cited by 44 publications

References 93 publications

A global geography of synchrony for terrestrial vegetation

A global geography of synchrony for terrestrial vegetation

Precipitation alters interactions in a grassland ecological community

Impacts of consumer–resource interaction transitions on persistence and long‐term interaction outcomes of random ecological networks

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