Synchrony matters more than species richness in plant community stability at a global scale

The stability of ecological communities is critical for the stable provisioning of ecosystem services, such as food and forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Greater biodiversity is expected to enhance stability across years by decreasing synchrony among species, but the drive...

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Authors: Valencia Gómez, Enrique, Bello, Francesco de, Galland, Thomas, Adler, Peter, Lepš, Jan, E-Vojtkó, Anna, van Klink, Roel, Carmona, Carlos, Danihelka, Jiří, Dengler, Jürgen, Eldridge, David J., Estiarte, Marc, García-González, Ricardo, Garnier, Eric, Gómez‐García, Daniel, Harrison, Susan, Herben, Tomáš, Ibáñez, Ricardo, Jentsch, Anke, Juergens, Norbert, Kertész, Miklós, Klumpp, Katja, Louault, Frédérique, Marrs, Rob, Ogaya, Romà, Ónodi, Gábor, Pakeman, Robin, Pardo, Iker, Pärtel, Meelis, Begoña Peco, Peñuelas, Josep, Pywell, Richard, Rueda, Marta, Schmidt, Wolfgang, Schmiedel, Ute, Schuetz, Martin, Skálová, Hana, Šmilauer, Petr, Šmilauerová, Marie, Smit, Christian, Song, MingHua, Stock, Martin, Val, James, Vandvik, Vigdis, Ward, David, Wesche, Karsten, Wiser, Susan, Woodcock, Ben, Young, Truman, Yu, Fei-Hai, Zobel, Martin, Götzenberger, Lars
Format: article
Publication Date:2020
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repository:Docta Complutense
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/94918
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94918
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:581.5
Evenness
Climate change drivers
Species richness
Stability
Synchrony
Botánica (Biología)
2417.13 Ecología Vegetal
Description
Summary:The stability of ecological communities is critical for the stable provisioning of ecosystem services, such as food and forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Greater biodiversity is expected to enhance stability across years by decreasing synchrony among species, but the drivers of stability in nature remain poorly resolved. Our analysis of time series from 79 datasets across the world showed that stability was associated more strongly with the degree of synchrony among dominant species than with species richness. The relatively weak influence of species richness is consistent with theory predicting that the effect of richness on stability weakens when synchrony is higher than expected under random fluctuations, which was the case in most communities. Land management, nutrient addition, and climate change treatments had relatively weak and varying effects on stability, modifying how species richness, synchrony, and stability interact. Our results demonstrate the prevalence of biotic drivers on ecosystem stability, with the potential for environmental drivers to alter the intricate relationship among richness, synchrony, and stability.

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