Magurran_etalPP.pdf (1.81 MB)
Divergent biodiversity change within ecosystems
journal contribution
posted on 2018-02-08, 15:15 authored by Anne E. Magurran, Amy E. Deacon, Faye Moyes, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Maria Dornelas, Dawn A.T Phillip, Indar W. RamnarineThe Earth’s ecosystems are under unprecedented pressure yet the nature of
contemporary biodiversity change is not well understood. Growing evidence that community size is regulated highlights the need for improved understanding of community dynamics. As stability in community size could be underpinned by marked temporal turnover, a key question is the extent to which changes in both biodiversity dimensions (temporal a and temporal b diversity) covary within and
amongst the assemblages that comprise natural communities. Here, we draw on a new
multi-assemblage data set (encompassing vertebrates, invertebrates and unicellular
plants) from a tropical freshwater ecosystem, and employ a cyclic shift randomization to assess whether any directional change in temporal a diversity and temporal b
diversity exceeds baseline levels. In the majority of cases a diversity remains stable
over the 5 year time frame of our analysis, with little evidence for systematic change
at the community level. In contrast, temporal b diversity changes are more prevalent,
and the two diversity dimensions are de-coupled at both the within- and among
assemblage level. Consequently, a pressing turnover supports regulation, and when elevated temporal b diversity jeopardizes
community integrity.
Funding
This project was funded by the ERC (AdG BioTIME 250189 and PoC BioCHANGE 727440). AEM also acknowledges support from the Royal Society, and MD from the Scottish Funding Council (MASTS grant reference HR09011).
History
School
- Science
Department
- Mathematical Sciences
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of AmericaCitation
MAGURRAN, A.E. ...et al., 2018. Divergent biodiversity change within ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115 (8), pp.1843-1847.Publisher
© the Authors. Published by the National Academy of SciencesVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1712594115.Acceptance date
2017-12-20Publication date
2018-02-12ISSN
0027-8424Publisher version
Language
- en