Spatial synchrony is related to environmental change in Finnish moth communities

Abstract

Spatially distinct pairs of sites may have similarly fluctuating population dynamics across large geographical distances, a phenomenon called spatial synchrony. However, species rarely exist in isolation, but rather as members of interactive communities, linked with other communities through dispersal (i.e. a metacommunity). Using data on Finnish moth communities sampled across 65 sites for 20 years, we examine the complex synchronous/anti-synchronous relationships among sites using the geography of synchrony framework. We relate site-level synchrony to mean and temporal variation in climatic data, finding that colder and drier sites—and those with the most drastic temperature increases—are important for spatial synchrony. This suggests that faster-warming sites contribute most strongly to site-level estimates of synchrony, highlighting the role of a changing climate to spatial synchrony. Considering the spatial variability in climate change rates is therefore important to understand metacommunity dynamics and identify habitats which contribute most strongly to spatial synchrony.

Drivers and spatial patterns of population synchrony of fish species in a floodplain

“…Additionally, we separated the positive and negative significant correlations in each R matrix, and averaged the pairwise correlations across species, separately for positive and negative correlations. This allowed us to obtain a single mean synchrony and a single mean anti‐synchrony network (Dallas et al., 2020).…”

“…The relative influence of different mechanisms on spatial synchrony can be potentially investigated using matrix regression models (e.g., Anderson, Walter, et al., 2018; Haynes et al., 2013; Walter et al., 2017). Complementarily, the use of network‐based methods is a promising approach to detail the geography of synchrony (Dallas et al., 2020; Walter et al., 2017, 2020). In a network graph, nodes represent the local populations and edges represent the strength of pairwise synchrony (Walter et al., 2017).…”

“…Modules could also indicate whether groups of local populations that are more connected through dispersal or that are subjected to similar levels of environmental stochasticity are more synchronous among them than with others. In addition, network centrality measures could reveal the existence of hubs of synchrony, that is, local populations that have high contribution to the synchrony network (Dallas et al., 2020; Gouveia et al., 2016; Walter et al., 2017).…”

Seasonality, density dependence and spatial population synchrony

“…Such AR(2) models are often used in literature (e.g. Turkia et al (2020); Dallas et al (2020)). Model (III) is characterized by incorporating regional-specific effects {β r2 , β r4 , γ r2 , γ r4 } m r=1 .…”

“…On the contrary, it has even been argued that one should use yearly averages to remove the influence of seasonality when estimating synchrony (e.g. Dallas et al (2020)).…”