Environmental responses, not species interactions, determine synchrony of dominant species in semiarid grasslands

Temporal asynchrony among species helps diversity to stabilize ecosystem functioning, but identifying the mechanisms that determine synchrony remains a challenge. Here, we refine and test theory showing that synchrony depends on three factors: species responses to environmental variation, interspeci...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology (Durham) 2017-04, Vol.98 (4), p.971-981
Main Authors: Tredennick, Andrew T., de Mazancourt, Claire, Loreau, Michel, Adler, Peter B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Biodiversity and Ecology
compensatory dynamics
Computer simulation
Covariance
Demographic fluctuations
demographic stochasticity
Demographics
Demography
Dominant species
Ecosystem
Ecosystem dynamics
Ecosystems
Environment
Environmental Sciences
environmental stochasticity
Grassland
Grasslands
Interspecific
interspecific competition
Per capita growth
Plant communities
Plant ecology
Plant populations
Plants - classification
Population Dynamics
Population ecology
Probability theory
Randomness
Semiarid environments
Simulations
Species diversity
stability
Stochastic models
Stochasticity
synchrony
Synecology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Temporal asynchrony among species helps diversity to stabilize ecosystem functioning, but identifying the mechanisms that determine synchrony remains a challenge. Here, we refine and test theory showing that synchrony depends on three factors: species responses to environmental variation, interspecific interactions, and demographic stochasticity. We then conduct simulation experiments with empirical population models to quantify the relative influence of these factors on the synchrony of dominant species in five semiarid grasslands. We found that the average synchrony of per capita growth rates, which can range from 0 (perfect asynchrony) to 1 (perfect synchrony), was higher when environmental variation was present (0.62) rather than absent (0.43). Removing interspecific interactions and demographic stochasticity had small effects on synchrony. For the dominant species in these plant communities, where species interactions and demographic stochasticity have little influence, synchrony reflects the covariance in species' responses to the environment.
ISSN:0012-9658
1939-9170
DOI:10.1002/ecy.1757