Long-term community change through multiple rapid transitions in a desert rodent community

Christensen, Erica M.; Harris, David J.; Ernest, S. K. Morgan

doi:10.1101/163931

Cited by 13 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…The rapid conversion of rodent removals to controls was made possible by the absence of the influence of an existing rodent community. This result is consistent with other work that has noted rapid shifts in biodiversity states after disturbances (Christensen et al, 2018b; Smith, 2011; Turner, 2010). Thus disturbances that eliminate the impacts or advantages of an existing community may create conditions that make biodiversity state shifts more probable.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Established rodent community delays recovery of dominant competitor following experimental disturbance

Christensen

Simpson

Ernest

2018

Preprint

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Human activities alter processes that control local biodiversity, causing changes in the abundance and identity of species in many ecosystems. However, restoring biodiversity to a previous state is rarely as simple as reintroducing lost species or restoring processes to their pre-disturbance state. Theory suggests that established species can impede shifts in species composition via a variety of mechanisms, including direct interference (e.g. territoriality), preempting resources, or habitat alteration. Here we use a long-term experimental manipulation of a desert rodent community to examine differences in the recolonization dynamics of a dominant competitor (kangaroo rats of the genus Dipodomys) when patches were already occupied by an existing rodent community relative to when patches were empty. Recovery of kangaroo rat populations was slow on plots with an established community of other rodent species, taking approximately two years. In contrast, recovery of kangaroo rat populations was rapid on empty plots with no established residents (approximately 3 months). We found little evidence that the delay in kangaroo rat colonization was due to direct interference from competitors, or could be explained by differences in habitat, implicating resource preemption by the established community as the most likely mechanism. These results demonstrate that the presence of an established alternate community inhibits recolonization by new species, even those that should be dominant in the community. This has important implications for understanding how biodiversity may change in the future, and what processes may slow or prevent this change.Significance statementEcological communities are changing due to human activities altering the processes governing local biodiversity. However restoring these processes often fails to restore the previous biodiversity state, implying that additional mechanisms contribute to community dynamics. Here we use an experimental manipulation of a desert rodent community—in which dominant competitors (kangaroo rats) were removed and then reintroduced years later—to show that the presence of previously-established species alters the dynamics of the dominant competitor’s recovery. Kangaroo rat populations took two years to recover on patches where inferior competitors were already established, compared to three months on uninhabited patches. This suggests that priority effects and initial conditions are critical to consider when predicting community response to disturbance, or in ecological restoration projects.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Established rodent community delays recovery of dominant competitor following experimental disturbance

Christensen

Simpson

Ernest

2018

Preprint

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“…It could also be that concomitant impacts of landscape-wide changes in LULC on bird diversity are not apparent yet, with some previous studies having found lags of up to several decades (Findlay and Bourdages 2000;Watts et al 2020). Future studies could benefit from analysing impacts of preceding changes in LULC on both mean and variance of biodiversity change (Leung et al 2017;Christensen et al 2018), considering longer past time frames as well as considering varying trajectories of remotely-sensed change in LULC (Watson et al 2014) and identifying the drivers of LULC change (e.g. deforestation, agricultural expansion).…”

Section: Lag Effects Of Preceding Changes In Land Use and Land Covermentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape-wide changes in land use and land cover correlate with, but rarely explain local biodiversity change

2020

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Context There is an ongoing debate whether local biodiversity is declining and what might drive this change. Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) are suspected to impact local biodiversity. However, there is little evidence for LULC changes beyond the local scale to affect biodiversity across multiple functional groups of species, thus limiting our understanding of the causes of biodiversity change. Objectives Here we investigate whether landscape-wide changes in LULC, defined as either trends in or abrupt changes in magnitude of photosynthetic activity, are driving bird diversity change. Methods Linking 34 year (1984–2017) time series at 2745 breeding bird survey (BBS) routes across the conterminous United States of America with remotely-sensed Landsat imagery, we assessed for each year what proportion of the landscape surrounding each BBS route changed in photosynthetic activity and tested whether such concomitant or preceding landscape-wide changes explained changes in bird diversity, quantified as relative abundance (geometric mean) and assemblage composition (Bray–Curtis index). Results We found that changes in relative abundance was negatively, and assemblage composition positively, correlated with changes in photosynthetic activity within the wider landscape. Furthermore, landscape-wide changes in LULC in preceding years explained on average more variation in bird diversity change than concomitant change. Overall, landscape-wide changes in LULC failed to explain most of the variation in bird diversity change for most BBS routes regardless whether differentiated by functional groups or ecoregions. Conclusions Our analyses highlight the influence of preceding and concomitant landscape-wide changes in LULC on biodiversity.

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“…The abundances of the species present will vary, while the order in which taxa are ranked in the species abundance distribution may also be subject to change (Collins et al, ). Dominant species (Shi et al, ; Song et al, ) could be most influential in community reorganization in some cases, with rare species playing an important role in others (Christensen, Harris, & Ernest, ). Alterations in the identities of the persistent and transient species are another possibility (Magurran & Henderson, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multivariate approaches (Legendre & Gauthier, ) are a further option. For example, cluster analysis and non‐metric multidimensional scaling were used to identify climate‐related shifts in the composition of a Norwegian inshore fish assemblage over eight decades (Barceló, Ciannelli, Olsen, Johannessen, & Knutsen, ), while machine learning helped uncover assemblage reorganization in a desert rodent community (Christensen et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal β diversity—A macroecological perspective

Magurran

Dornelas

Moyes

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

108

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Issue Biodiversity change, that is how the taxonomic identities and abundances of species in ecological systems are changing over time, has two facets: temporal α diversity and temporal β diversity. To date, temporal α diversity has received most attention even though compositional shifts in assemblages exceed expectations based on ecological theory. Growing concern about the state of the world’s biodiversity highlights the need for better understanding of the extent, and consequences, of compositional reorganization in ecological systems. Challenges Most methods of measuring β diversity have been developed in a spatial context. We discuss the additional challenges involved in the assessment of temporal change, summarize existing methodological approaches, highlight the importance of establishing relevant baselines, and identify the need for appropriate null models of temporal β diversity. Given considerable potential for research on the macroecology of temporal β diversity we suggest future directions and challenges. Conclusions Although data availability remains the main impediment to improved quantification of temporal β diversity at macroecological scales, there are substantial opportunities for improved methodology and theory. Taxonomic β diversity has received most attention, but other dimensions of diversity, including functional and phylogenetic, should be part of integrated assessments of biodiversity change. Future approaches need to be ecologically meaningful and interpretable as well as statistically robust.

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Long-term community change through multiple rapid transitions in a desert rodent community

Cited by 13 publications

References 55 publications

Established rodent community delays recovery of dominant competitor following experimental disturbance

Established rodent community delays recovery of dominant competitor following experimental disturbance

Landscape-wide changes in land use and land cover correlate with, but rarely explain local biodiversity change

Temporal β diversity—A macroecological perspective

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