Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 95, Issue 6, Pages 1693-1700Publisher
ECOLOGICAL SOC AMER
DOI: 10.1890/13-0895.1
Keywords
compensatory dynamics; dominant species; LTER; mean-variance scaling; negative covariance; portfolio effect; Taylor's power law
Categories
Funding
- Cross-Site Synthesis grant from the Long-Term Ecological Research Network
- National Science Foundation (NSF) through the LTER network [DEB-0080382, DEB-0917668, DEB-1235828, DEB-1242747, DEB-1027253, DEB-0423627, DEB-9810220, DEB-0620482, DEB-0217631]
- UC-Berkeley Chancellor's Fellowship
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1027253, 1440484] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0823341] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Understanding how biotic mechanisms confer stability in variable environments is a fundamental quest in ecology, and one that is becoming increasingly urgent with global change. Several mechanisms, notably a portfolio effect associated with species richness, compensatory dynamics generated by negative species covariance and selection for stable dominant species populations can increase the stability of the overall community. While the importance of these mechanisms is debated, few studies have contrasted their importance in an environmental context. We analyzed nine long-term data sets of grassland species composition to investigate how two key environmental factors, precipitation amount and variability, may directly influence community stability and how they may indirectly influence stability via biotic mechanisms. We found that the importance of stability mechanisms varied along the environmental gradient: strong negative species covariance occurred in sites characterized by high precipitation variability, whereas portfolio effects increased in sites with high mean annual precipitation. Instead of questioning whether compensatory dynamics are important in nature, our findings suggest that debate should widen to include several stability mechanisms and how these mechanisms vary in importance across environmental gradients.
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