Gotellietal2017.pdf (524.25 kB)
Community-level regulation of temporal trends in biodiversity
journal contribution
posted on 2017-08-11, 09:46 authored by Nicholas J. Gotelli, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Maria Dornelas, Brian McGill, Faye Moyes, Anne E. MagurranMany theoretical models of community dynamics predict that species richness (S) and total abundance (N) are regulated in their temporal fluctuations. We present novel evidence for widespread regulation of biodiversity. For 59 plant and animal assemblages from around the globe monitored annually for a decade or more, the
majority exhibited regulated fluctuations compared to the null hypothesis of an unconstrained random walk. However, there was little evidence for statistical artifacts, regulation driven by correlations with average annual temperature, or local-scale compensatory fluctuations in S or N. In the absence of major environmental perturbations, such as urbanization or cropland transformation, species richness and abundance may be buffered and exhibit some resilience in their temporal trajectories. These results suggest that regulatory processes are
occurring despite unprecedented environmental change, highlighting the need for community-level assessment of biodiversity trends, as well as extensions of existing theory to address open source pools and shifting environmental conditions.
Funding
N.J.G. was supported by the NSF (DEB 1257625, DEB 1144055, and DEB 1136644). A.E.M. acknowledges support from ERC AgG BioTIME (250189), ERC PoC BioCHANGE (727440), and the Royal Society. M.D. is grateful for the support from the Scottish Funding Council (Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland grant reference HR09011).
History
School
- Science
Department
- Mathematical Sciences
Published in
Science AdvancesVolume
3Issue
7Citation
GOTELLI, N.J. ... et al, 2017. Community-level regulation of temporal trends in biodiversity. Science Advances, 3 (7), e1700315.Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) © The AuthorsVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Acceptance date
2017-06-21Publication date
2017-07-26Notes
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Science Advances and is also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700315.eISSN
2375-2548Publisher version
Language
- en