Using life history trade‐offs to understand core‐transient structuring of a small mammal community

Abstract

An emerging conceptual framework suggests that communities are composed of two main groups of species through time: core species that are temporally persistent, and transient species that are temporally intermittent. Core and transient species have been shown to differ in spatiotemporal turnover, diversity patterns, and importantly, survival strategies targeted at local versus regional habitat use. While the core‐transient framework has typically been a site‐specific designation for species, we suggest that if core and transient species have local versus regional survival strategies across sites, and consistently differ in population‐level spatial structure and gene flow, they may also typically exhibit different life‐history strategies. Specifically, core species should display relatively low movement rates, low reproductive effort, high ecological specialization and high survival rates compared to transient species, which may display a wider range of traits given that transience may result from source‐sink dynamics or from the ability to emigrate readily in a nomadic fashion. We present results from 21 years of capture‐mark‐recapture data in a diverse rodent community, evaluating the linkages between temporal persistence, local abundance, and trade‐offs among life‐history traits. Core species at our site conservatively supported our hypotheses, differing in ecological specialization, survival and movement probabilities, and reproductive effort relative to transient species. Transient species exhibited a wider range of characteristics, which likely stems from the multiple processes generating transience in local communities, such as source‐sink dynamics at larger regional scales or nomadic life history strategies. We suggest that trait associations among core‐transient species may be similar in other systems and warrants further study.

A core‐transient framework for trait‐based community ecology: an example from a tropical tree seedling community

“…Thus, satellite species are not always the same as transient species (Supp et al . ). For example, spatially restricted species might be persistent components of the community, or broadly distributed species might be transient components.…”

“…This approach, however, fails to recognize that not all of the present species will have strong trait‐environment or demographic rate‐environment–trait relationships (Supp et al . ). Specifically, some species may be transient and not well‐suited to the local environment.…”

Spatio-Temporal Variation of Core and Satellite Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus Communities in Miscanthus giganteus

“…Magurran and Henderson (2003) hypothesized that in macro-organisms, core species are well-adapted to surroundings, whereas, satellite species are under limitations of dispersal. This approach has proved to be a useful tool to understand ecological principles shaping communities of macro-organisms (Pärtel et al, 2001; Unterseher et al, 2011b; Supp et al, 2015) but has only infrequently been implemented in analyses of microbial communities (Ulrich and Zalewski, 2006; Unterseher et al, 2011a; Rogers et al, 2013; Lindh et al, 2015). …”

Shrub encroachment, productivity pulses, and core‐transient dynamics of Chihuahuan Desert rodents

“…Specifically, an understanding of how core‐transient dynamics at landscape scales (Supp et al. ) respond to precipitation variability is necessary to explain population fluctuations at site scales. Core species are persistent species that normally occur on sites, whereas transient species only infrequently appear, and their dynamics are driven by broader landscape heterogeneity (Magurran and Henderson , Coyle et al.…”