The impacts of different management strategies and environmental forcing in ecological communities

Enberg, Katja; Fowler, Mike S.; Ranta, Esa

doi:10.1098/rspb.2006.3611

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…One related study illustrates that the addition of biomass to a target species through artificial stocking can destabilise model communities, in some cases leading to the extinction of non‐target species (Enberg et al . ). Other recent work demonstrates qualitative shifts in extinction risk for different species across food webs driven by changes in the symmetry of competition (Fowler ), which could arise through differences in the exploitation of PAFS across species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Ecological and evolutionary implications of food subsidies from humans

et al. 2013

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Human activities are the main current driver of global change. From hunter-gatherers through to Neolithic societies-and particularly in contemporary industrialised countries-humans have (voluntarily or involuntarily) provided other animals with food, often with a high spatio-temporal predictability. Nowadays, as much as 30-40% of all food produced in Earth is wasted. We argue here that predictable anthropogenic food subsidies (PAFS) provided historically by humans to animals has shaped many communities and ecosystems as we see them nowadays. PAFS improve individual fitness triggering population increases of opportunistic species, which may affect communities, food webs and ecosystems by altering processes such as competition, predator-prey interactions and nutrient transfer between biotopes and ecosystems. We also show that PAFS decrease temporal population variability, increase resilience of opportunistic species and reduce community diversity. Recent environmental policies, such as the regulation of dumps or the ban of fishing discards, constitute natural experiments that should improve our understanding of the role of food supply in a range of ecological and evolutionary processes at the ecosystem level. Comparison of subsidised and non-subsidised ecosystems can help predict changes in diversity and the related ecosystem services that have suffered the impact of other global change agents.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Ecological and evolutionary implications of food subsidies from humans

et al. 2013

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“…Moreover, it is also unlikely that any natural disturbances will affect only a single species in a community. Anthropogenic disturbances, such as harvesting or stocking, may however be very specific by their impact on species assemblages (Enberg et al 2006), and thus our results considering single species disturbance are not of academic interest only.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Extinctions in competitive communities forced by coloured environmental variation

Ruokolainen¹,

Fowler²,

Ranta³

2007

Oikos

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Understanding the relationships between environmental fluctuations, population dynamics and species interactions in natural communities is of vital theoretical and practical importance. This knowledge is essential in assessing extinction risks in communities that are, for example, pressed by changing environmental conditions and increasing exploitation. We developed a model of density dependent population renewal, in a Lotka–Volterra competitive community context, to explore the significance of interspecific interactions, demographic stochasticity, population growth rate and species abundance on extinction risk in populations under various autocorrelation (colour) regimes of environmental forcing. These factors were evaluated in two cases, where either a single species or the whole community was affected by the external forcing. Species’ susceptibility to environmental noise with different autocorrelation structure depended markedly on population dynamics, species’ position in the abundance hierarchy and how similarly community members responded to external forcing. We also found interactions between demographic stochasticity and environmental noise leading to a reversal in extinction probabilities from under‐ to overcompensatory dynamics. We compare our results with studies of single species populations and contrast possible mechanisms leading to extinctions. Our findings indicate that abundance rank, the form of population dynamics, and the colour of environmental variation interact in affecting species extinction risk. These interactions are further modified by interspecific interactions within competitive communities as the interactions filter and modulate the environmental noise.

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“…This will make any generalisations difficult, as species' own experience of (and reaction to) the environment will depend on the colour and amplitude (which may have a non-linear interaction) of environmental fluctuations, species environmental correlation (which can even be modified by the presence of competitors; Descamps-Julien and Gonzales, 2005), competitive intensity (Ruokolainen et al, 2009a) and spatial structure. Our observation that there can be covariation between the environmental conditions and the structure of communities, promoting different aspects of biodiversity (richness and evenness), is also of interest for population management (e.g., Enberg et al, 2006) and conservation biology. Qualitative differences in model predictions allow us to generate clear predictions (testable hypotheses) about the correlation structure of natural or experimental communities, when they are forced under different strengths or colours of environmental variation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%