Asynchrony and functional diversity couple herbivore community dynamics to host plant diversity.

ABSTRACT: Biodiversity loss can destabilize ecosystem functioning. How biodiversity-stability relationships are interlinked across trophic levels remains poorly investigated, however, limiting our ability to predict ecosystem-level consequences of declining biodiversity. Here, we analyze the drivers of multi-year herbivore community stability-as a key connector between primary producers and higher trophic levels-and its coupling with host tree diversity and growth stability along a subtropical tree diversity gradient. Phylogenetic diversity, abundance asynchrony and population stability of herbivores emerge as key intra-community regulators of herbivore temporal stability. These regulators, in turn, are strongly affected by changes in tree species richness through tree functional diversity, tree gro

SUBMITTER: Wang MQ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12819501 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature