Mean species responses predict effects of environmental change on coexistence

Abstract

Environmental change research is plagued by the curse of dimensionality: the number of communities at risk and the number of environmental drivers are both large. This raises the pressing question if a general understanding of ecological effects is achievable. Here, we show evidence that this is indeed possible. Using theoretical and simulation‐based evidence for bi‐ and tritrophic communities, we show that environmental change effects on coexistence are proportional to mean species responses and depend on how trophic levels on average interact prior to environmental change. We then benchmark our findings using relevant cases of environmental change, showing that means of temperature optima and of species sensitivities to pollution predict concomitant effects on coexistence. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply our theory to the analysis of field data, finding support for effects of land use change on coexistence in natural invertebrate communities.

finsyncR, an R package to synchronize 27 years of fish and invertebrate data across the United States

“…These data are used by the US government in assessment frameworks, but a wealth of additional knowledge can be gleaned from unique applications of these data. For instance, scientists have recently used data from federal biomonitoring programs to document long-term changes in stream biodiversity at a national scale 2 and to test ecological theory on the influence of environmental change on species coexistence 3 . While most data associated with these biomonitoring efforts are publicly available, barriers remain for new, outside users to apply these data without institutional guidance.…”

Stability, resilience and eco‐evolutionary feedbacks of mutualistic networks to rising temperature

“…These networks consist of groups of species that rely on mutually positive interactions such as plant-pollinator interactions, seed dispersal and so forth. These mutualistic networks could undergo changes in strength of species interaction in response to changes in the external environment, such as rise in temperature or habitat destruction (Baruah, 2023;Bascompte & Stouffer, 2009;Bhandary et al, 2023;De Laender et al, 2023;Prakash & de Roos, 2004;Revilla et al, 2015). Due to rise in temperature, mutualistic interactions could be disrupted, as mismatches in plant-pollinator phenology for instance could occur, leading to the weakening of interactions (Gordo & Sanz, 2005;Hegland et al, 2009;Ibáñez et al, 2010;Memmott et al, 2007).…”

The distribution of distances to the edge of species coexistence

“…As in previous studies of asymmetry of the feasibility domain, our theory strongly depends on the way environmental disturbances are modeled (Allen-Perkins et al, 2023;Cenci et al, 2018a;De Laender et al, 2023;Lepori et al, 2024). This highlights the importance of taking into account the type of disturbance when studying the stability of a community (Arnoldi et al, 2018;Arnoldi et al, 2019;Bender et al, 1984) and suggests that different results could be obtained by considering other types of disturbance (ie.…”

“…Allen-Perkins et al (2023),Cenci et al (2018a), andDe Laender et al (2023), we consider perturbations as changes in environmental conditions that occurs on a long-time scale (so that a new equilibrium can be reached). Mathematically, we model a perturbation as a vector of variation δr of species intrinsic growth rates (i.e.…”