The inherent multidimensionality of temporal variability: how common and rare species shape stability patterns.

ABSTRACT: Empirical knowledge of diversity-stability relationships is mostly based on the analysis of temporal variability. Variability, however, often depends on external factors that act as disturbances, which makes comparisons across systems difficult to interpret. Here, we show how variability can reveal inherent stability properties of ecological communities. This requires that we abandon one-dimensional representations, in which a single variability measurement is taken as a proxy for how stable a system is, and instead consider the whole set of variability values generated by all possible stochastic perturbations. Despite this complexity, in species-rich systems, a generic pattern emerges from community assembly, relating variability to the abundance of perturbed species. Strikingly, the cont

SUBMITTER: Arnoldi JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6756922 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature