Asynchrony among local communities stabilises ecosystem function of metacommunities

Kevin R Wilcox; Andrew T Tredennick; Sally E Koerner; Emily Grman; Lauren M Hallett; Meghan L Avolio; Kimberly J La Pierre; Gregory R Houseman; Forest Isbell; David Samuel Johnson; Juha M Alatalo; Andrew H Baldwin; Edward W Bork; Elizabeth H Boughton; William D Bowman; Andrea J Britton; James F Cahill Jr; Scott L Collins; Guozhen Du; Anu Eskelinen; Laura Gough; Anke Jentsch; Christel Kern; Kari Klanderud; Alan K Knapp; Juergen Kreyling; Yiqi Luo; Jennie R McLaren; Patrick Megonigal; Vladimir Onipchenko; Janet Prevéy; Jodi N Price; Clare H Robinson; Osvaldo E Sala; Melinda D Smith; Nadejda A Soudzilovskaia; Lara Souza; David Tilman; Shannon R White; Zhuwen Xu; Laura Yahdjian; Qiang Yu; Pengfei Zhang; Yunhai Zhang

doi:10.1111/ele.12861

Asynchrony among local communities stabilises ecosystem function of metacommunities

Ecol Lett. 2017 Dec;20(12):1534-1545. doi: 10.1111/ele.12861. Epub 2017 Oct 24.

Authors

Kevin R Wilcox¹, Andrew T Tredennick², Sally E Koerner³, Emily Grman⁴, Lauren M Hallett⁵, Meghan L Avolio⁶, Kimberly J La Pierre⁷, Gregory R Houseman⁸, Forest Isbell⁹, David Samuel Johnson¹⁰, Juha M Alatalo¹¹, Andrew H Baldwin¹², Edward W Bork¹³, Elizabeth H Boughton¹⁴, William D Bowman¹⁵, Andrea J Britton¹⁶, James F Cahill Jr¹⁷, Scott L Collins¹⁸, Guozhen Du¹⁹, Anu Eskelinen^{20

21

22}, Laura Gough²³, Anke Jentsch²⁴, Christel Kern²⁵, Kari Klanderud²⁶, Alan K Knapp²⁷, Juergen Kreyling²⁸, Yiqi Luo^{1

29

30}, Jennie R McLaren³¹, Patrick Megonigal³², Vladimir Onipchenko³³, Janet Prevéy³⁴, Jodi N Price³⁵, Clare H Robinson³⁶, Osvaldo E Sala³⁷, Melinda D Smith²⁷, Nadejda A Soudzilovskaia³⁸, Lara Souza^{1

39}, David Tilman⁴⁰, Shannon R White⁴¹, Zhuwen Xu⁴², Laura Yahdjian⁴³, Qiang Yu⁴⁴, Pengfei Zhang¹⁹, Yunhai Zhang^{45

46}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, 770 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK, 73019, USA.
² Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84321, USA.
³ Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, 27412, USA.
⁴ Biology Department, Eastern Michigan University, 441 Mark Jefferson Science Complex, Ypsilanti, MI, 48197, USA.
⁵ Environmental Studies Program and Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA.
⁶ Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 301 Olin Hall 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.
⁷ Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, 647 Contees Wharf Road, Edgewater, MD, 21037, USA.
⁸ Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA.
⁹ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA.
¹⁰ Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, VA, 23062, USA.
¹¹ Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.
¹² Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
¹³ Agriculture/Forestry Center, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2P5.
¹⁴ Archbold Biological Station, MacArthur Agroecology Research Center, 300 Buck Island Ranch Road, Lake Placid, FL, 33852, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mountain Research Station, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
¹⁶ The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, UK.
¹⁷ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E9, Canada.
¹⁸ Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
¹⁹ School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
²⁰ Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ, Permoserstr. 15, D-04318, Leipzig, Germany.
²¹ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena- Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, D-04103, Leipzig, Germany.
²² Department of Ecology, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FI-90014, Oulu, Finland.
²³ Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD, 21252, USA.
²⁴ Department of Disturbance Ecology, University of Bayreuth, D-95440, Bayreuth, Germany.
²⁵ Northern Research Station, US Forest Service, 5985 Highway K, Rhinelander, WI, 54501, USA.
²⁶ Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432, Aas, Norway.
²⁷ Department of Biology, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
²⁸ Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, Experimental Plant Ecology, Greifswald University, Soldmannstrasse 15, D-17487, Greifswald, Germany.
²⁹ Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss), Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
³⁰ Department for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
³¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, 79968, USA.
³² Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, 20754, USA.
³³ Department of Geobotany, Moscow State Lomonosov University, Leninskie gory 1-12, 119234, Moscow, Russia.
³⁴ USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3625 93rd Ave SW, Olympia, WA, 98512, USA.
³⁵ Institute of Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW, 2640, Australia.
³⁶ School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
³⁷ School of Life Sciences and School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA.
³⁸ Conservation Biology Department, Institute of Environmental Sciences, CML, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC, Leiden, The Netherlands.
³⁹ Oklahoma Biological Survey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA.
⁴¹ Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T5K 2M4, Canada.
⁴² Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110016, China.
⁴³ Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA), Facultad de Agronomía, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴⁴ National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station/Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
⁴⁵ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China.
⁴⁶ Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Blichers Allé 20, 8830, Tjele, Denmark.

Abstract

Temporal stability of ecosystem functioning increases the predictability and reliability of ecosystem services, and understanding the drivers of stability across spatial scales is important for land management and policy decisions. We used species-level abundance data from 62 plant communities across five continents to assess mechanisms of temporal stability across spatial scales. We assessed how asynchrony (i.e. different units responding dissimilarly through time) of species and local communities stabilised metacommunity ecosystem function. Asynchrony of species increased stability of local communities, and asynchrony among local communities enhanced metacommunity stability by a wide range of magnitudes (1-315%); this range was positively correlated with the size of the metacommunity. Additionally, asynchronous responses among local communities were linked with species' populations fluctuating asynchronously across space, perhaps stemming from physical and/or competitive differences among local communities. Accordingly, we suggest spatial heterogeneity should be a major focus for maintaining the stability of ecosystem services at larger spatial scales.

Keywords: Alpha diversity; CoRRE data base; alpha variability; beta diversity; biodiversity; patchiness; plant communities; primary productivity; species synchrony.

Publication types

Letter

MeSH terms

Biodiversity*
Ecosystem*
Plants
Reproducibility of Results