Biotic rescaling reveals importance of species interactions for variation in biodiversity responses to climate change

Generality in understanding biodiversity responses to climate change has been hampered by substantial variation in the rates and even directions of response to a given change in climate. We propose that such context dependencies can be clarified by rescaling climate gradients in terms of the underlying biological processes, with biotic interactions as a particularly important process. We tested this rescaling approach in a replicated field experiment where entire montane grassland communities were transplanted in the direction of expected temperature and/or precipitation change. In line with earlier work, we found considerable variation across sites in community dynamics in response to climate change. However, these complex context dependencies could be substantially reduced or eliminated by rescaling climate drivers in terms of proxies of plant−plant interactions. Specifically, bryophytes limited colonization by new species into local communities, whereas the cover of those colonists, along with bryophytes, were the primary drivers of local extinctions. These specific interactions are relatively understudied, suggesting important directions for future work in similar systems. More generally, the success of our approach in explaining and simplifying landscape-level variation in climate change responses suggests that developing and testing proxies for relevant underlying processes could be a fruitful direction for building more general models of biodiversity response to climate change.

Download Full-text

The importance of species interactions in eco-evolutionary community dynamics under climate change

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-24977-x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Anna Åkesson ◽

Alva Curtsdotter ◽

Anna Eklöf ◽

Bo Ebenman ◽

Jon Norberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Evolutionary Dynamics ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

Temperature Dependent ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact

AbstractEco-evolutionary dynamics are essential in shaping the biological response of communities to ongoing climate change. Here we develop a spatially explicit eco-evolutionary framework which features more detailed species interactions, integrating evolution and dispersal. We include species interactions within and between trophic levels, and additionally, we incorporate the feature that species’ interspecific competition might change due to increasing temperatures and affect the impact of climate change on ecological communities. Our modeling framework captures previously reported ecological responses to climate change, and also reveals two key results. First, interactions between trophic levels as well as temperature-dependent competition within a trophic level mitigate the negative impact of climate change on biodiversity, emphasizing the importance of understanding biotic interactions in shaping climate change impact. Second, our trait-based perspective reveals a strong positive relationship between the within-community variation in preferred temperatures and the capacity to respond to climate change. Temperature-dependent competition consistently results both in higher trait variation and more responsive communities to altered climatic conditions. Our study demonstrates the importance of species interactions in an eco-evolutionary setting, further expanding our knowledge of the interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes.

Download Full-text

Is the cask of facilitation ready for bottling? A symposium on the connectivity and future directions of positive plant interactions

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2009.0384 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (5) ◽

pp. 577-579 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Robin J. Pakeman ◽

Francisco I. Pugnaire ◽

Richard Michalet ◽

Chris J. Lortie ◽

Katja Schiffers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Communities ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Ecosystem Restoration ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

International Meeting ◽

Annual Symposium ◽

Future Directions ◽

Current State ◽

The University ◽

Future Work

The 2009 British Ecological Society's Annual Symposium entitled ‘Facilitation in Plant Communities’ was held at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, from 20 to 22 April 2009. This was the first ever international meeting dedicated to the rapidly expanding field of facilitation. The aim of the symposium was to assess the current ‘state-of-play’ by contrasting findings from different systems and by looking outwards in an attempt to integrate this field with other related fields. It was also aimed at understanding how knowledge of facilitation can help understand community dynamics and be applied to ecosystem restoration. The symposium identified several key areas where future work is likely to be most profitable.

Download Full-text

Ecology of Climate Change

10.23943/princeton/9780691148472.001.0001 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Eric Post

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Mathematical Models ◽

Late Pleistocene ◽

Stability Theory ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Biological Organization ◽

Ecological Responses ◽

Primary Driver

Rising temperatures are affecting organisms in all of Earth's biomes, but the complexity of ecological responses to climate change has hampered the development of a conceptually unified treatment of them. In a remarkably comprehensive synthesis, this book presents past, ongoing, and future ecological responses to climate change in the context of two simplifying hypotheses, facilitation and interference, arguing that biotic interactions may be the primary driver of ecological responses to climate change across all levels of biological organization. The author's synthesis and analyses of ecological consequences of climate change extend from the Late Pleistocene to the present, and through the next century of projected warming. The book's investigation is grounded in classic themes of enduring interest in ecology, but developed around novel conceptual and mathematical models of observed and predicted dynamics. Using stability theory as a recurring theme, the book argues that the magnitude of climatic variability may be just as important as the magnitude and direction of change in determining whether populations, communities, and species persist. It urges a more refined consideration of species interactions, emphasizing important distinctions between lateral and vertical interactions and their disparate roles in shaping responses of populations, communities, and ecosystems to climate change.

Download Full-text

Using evolutionary functional-structural plant modelling to understand the effect of climate change on plant populations

10.32942/osf.io/6be84 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jorad de Vries

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Functional Traits ◽

Plant Communities ◽

Evolutionary Dynamics ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Plant Fitness ◽

Vital Rates ◽

Climate Change Responses ◽

Mechanistic Basis

The “holy grail” of trait-based ecology is to predict the fitness of a species in a particular environment based on its functional traits, which has become all the more relevant in the light of global change. However, current ecological models are ill-equipped to predict ecological responses to novel conditions due to their reliance on statistical methods and current observations rather than the mechanisms underlying how functional traits interact with the environment to determine plant fitness. Here, I will advocate the use of functional-structural plant (FSP) modelling in combination with evolutionary modelling to explore climate change responses in natural plant communities. Gaining a mechanistic understanding of how trait-environment interactions drive natural selection in novel environments requires consideration of individual plants with multidimensional phenotypes in dynamic environments that include abiotic gradients and biotic interactions, and their effect on the different vital rates that determine plant fitness. Evolutionary FSP modelling explicitly represents the trait-environment interactions that drive eco-evolutionary dynamics from individual to population scales and allows for efficient navigation of the large, complex and dynamic fitness landscapes that emerge from considering multidimensional plants in multidimensional environments. Using evolutionary FSP modelling as a tool to study climate change responses of plant communities can further our understanding of the mechanistic basis of these responses, and in particular, the role of local adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, and gene flow.

Download Full-text

Novel communities from climate change

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2012.0238 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 367 (1605) ◽

pp. 2913-2922 ◽

Cited By ~ 106

Author(s):

Miguel Lurgi ◽

Bernat C. López ◽

José M. Montoya

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Size Structure ◽

Species Traits ◽

Ecological Specialization ◽

Community Size ◽

Interacting Species ◽

Distribution Ranges ◽

Body Sizes

Climate change is generating novel communities composed of new combinations of species. These result from different degrees of species adaptations to changing biotic and abiotic conditions, and from differential range shifts of species. To determine whether the responses of organisms are determined by particular species traits and how species interactions and community dynamics are likely to be disrupted is a challenge. Here, we focus on two key traits: body size and ecological specialization. We present theoretical expectations and empirical evidence on how climate change affects these traits within communities. We then explore how these traits predispose species to shift or expand their distribution ranges, and associated changes on community size structure, food web organization and dynamics. We identify three major broad changes: (i) Shift in the distribution of body sizes towards smaller sizes, (ii) dominance of generalized interactions and the loss of specialized interactions, and (iii) changes in the balance of strong and weak interaction strengths in the short term. We finally identify two major uncertainties: (i) whether large-bodied species tend to preferentially shift their ranges more than small-bodied ones, and (ii) how interaction strengths will change in the long term and in the case of newly interacting species.

Download Full-text

A hitchhiker guide to manta rays: Patterns of association between Mobula alfredi, M. birostris, their symbionts, and other fishes in the Maldives

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0253704 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (7) ◽

pp. e0253704

Author(s):

Aimee E. Nicholson-Jack ◽

Joanna L. Harris ◽

Kirsty Ballard ◽

Katy M. E. Turner ◽

Guy M. W. Stevens

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Individual Level ◽

Near Term ◽

Complex Relationships ◽

The Individual ◽

Future Work ◽

First Time

Despite being among the largest and most charismatic species in the marine environment, considerable gaps remain in our understanding of the behavioural ecology of manta rays (Mobula alfredi, M. birostris). Manta rays are often sighted in association with an array of smaller hitchhiker fish species, which utilise their hosts as a sanctuary for shelter, protection, and the sustenance they provide. Species interactions, rather than the species at the individual level, determine the ecological processes that drive community dynamics, support biodiversity and ecosystem health. Thus, understanding the associations within marine communities is critical to implementing effective conservation and management. However, the underlying patterns between manta rays, their symbionts, and other hitchhiker species remain elusive. Here, we explore the spatial and temporal variation in hitchhiker presence with M. alfredi and M. birostris throughout the Maldives and investigate the factors which may influence association using generalised linear mixed effects models (GLMM). For the first time, associations between M. alfredi and M. birostris with hitchhiker species other than those belonging to the family Echeneidae are described. A variation in the species of hitchhiker associated with M. alfredi and M. birostris was identified, with sharksucker remora (Echeneis naucrates) and giant remora (Remora remora) being the most common, respectively. Spatiotemporal variation in the presence of manta rays was identified as a driver for the occurrence of ephemeral hitchhiker associations. Near-term pregnant female M. alfredi, and M. alfredi at cleaning stations, had the highest likelihood of an association with adult E. naucrates. Juvenile E. naucrates were more likely to be associated with juvenile M. alfredi, and a seasonal trend in E. naucrates host association was identified. Remora were most likely to be present with female M. birostris, and a mean number of 1.5 ± 0.5 R. remora were observed per M. birostris. It is hoped these initial findings will serve as the basis for future work into the complex relationships between manta rays and their hitchhikers.

Download Full-text

Strengthened mutualistic adaptation between teosinte and its rhizosphere biota in cold climates

10.1101/2021.04.20.440703 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Anna M. O’Brien ◽

Ruairidh J.H. Sawers ◽

Jaime Gasca-Pineda ◽

Ivan Baxter ◽

Luis E. Eguiarte ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Plant Traits ◽

Stress Gradient ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Common Garden ◽

List Type ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Leaves ◽

Elevational Variation

SummaryWhile abiotic environments consistently shape local adaptation, the strength of local adaptation to biotic interactions may vary more. One theory, COCO (CO-evolutionary Outcomes across Conditionality), predicts it may be strongest where species experience greater stress, because stress increases fitness impacts of species interactions. For example, in plant interactions with rhizosphere biota, positive outcomes increase with stress from low soil fertility, drought and cold.To investigate the influence of abiotic stress gradients on adaptation between plants and rhizosphere biota, we used a greenhouse common garden experiment recombining teosinte, Zea mays ssp. mexicana (wild relative of maize), and rhizosphere biota, collected across a stress gradient (elevational variation in temperature, precipitation, and nutrients).We found stronger local adaptation between teosinte and rhizosphere biota from colder, more stressful sites, as expected by COCO. However, biota from less stressful, warmer sites provided greater average benefits across teosinte populations. Links between plant traits and 20-element profiles of plant leaves explained fitness variation, persisted in the field, were influenced by both plants and biota, and largely reflected patterns of local adaptation.In sum, we uncovered greater local adaptation to biotic interactions in colder sites, and that both plants and rhizosphere biota affect the expression of plant phenotypes.

Download Full-text

A process-based metacommunity framework linking local and regional scale community ecology

10.1101/832170 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Patrick L. Thompson ◽

Laura Melissa Guzman ◽

Luc De Meester ◽

Zsófia Horváth ◽

Robert Ptacnik ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Simulation Model ◽

Community Ecology ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Ecological Communities ◽

Data Accessibility ◽

Species Sorting ◽

Wide Range ◽

Underlying Processes

AbstractThe metacommunity concept has the potential to integrate local and regional dynamics within a general community ecology framework. To this end, the concept must move beyond the discrete archetypes that have largely defined it (e.g. neutral vs. species sorting) and better incorporate local scale species interactions and coexistence mechanisms. Here, we present a fundamental reconception of the framework that explicitly links local coexistence theory to the spatial processes inherent to metacommunity theory, allowing for a continuous range of competitive community dynamics. These dynamics emerge from the three underlying processes that shape ecological communities: 1) density-independent responses to abiotic conditions, 2) density-dependent biotic interactions, and 3) dispersal. Stochasticity is incorporated in the demographic realization of each of these processes. We formalize this framework using a simulation model that explores a wide range of competitive metacommunity dynamics by varying the strength of the underlying processes. Using this model and framework, we show how existing theories, including the traditional metacommunity archetypes, are linked by this common set of processes. We then use the model to generate new hypotheses about how the three processes combine to interactively shape diversity, functioning, and stability within metacommunities.Statement of authorshipThis project was conceived at the sTURN working group, of which all authors are members. PLT developed the framework and model with input from all authors. PLT wrote the model code. PLT and LMG performed the simulations. PLT produced the figures and wrote the first draft with input from LMG and JMC. All authors provided feedback and edits on several versions of the manuscript.Data accessibilityAll code for running the simulation model and producing the figures is archived on Zenodo - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3833035.

Download Full-text

Trait-based modelling in ecology: lessons from two decades of research

10.7287/peerj.preprints.27484v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Liubov Zakharova ◽

Katrin M Meyer ◽

Merav Seifan

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Community Dynamics ◽

Distribution Patterns ◽

Plant Ecology ◽

Ecological Modelling ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Complex Species ◽

Individual Level ◽

Current Usage ◽

The Individual

Trait-based approaches are an alternative to species-based approaches for functionally linking individual organisms with community structure and dynamics. In the trait‑based approach, the focus is on the traits, the physiological, morphological, or life-history characteristics, of organisms rather than their species. Although used in ecological research for several decades, this approach only emerged in ecological modelling about twenty years ago. We review this rise of trait-based models and trace the occasional transfer of trait-based modelling concepts between terrestrial plant ecology, animal and microbial ecology, and aquatic ecology. Trait-based models have a variety of purposes, such as predicting changes in species distribution patterns under climate and land-use change, planning and assessing conservation management, or studying invasion processes. In modelling, trait-based approaches can reduce technical challenges such as computational limitations, scaling problems, and data scarcity. However, we note inconsistencies in the current usage of terms in trait-based approaches and these inconsistencies must be resolved if trait-based concepts are to be easily exchanged between disciplines. Specifically, future trait-based models may further benefit from incorporating intraspecific trait variability and addressing more complex species interactions. We also recommend expanding the combination of trait-based approaches with individual-based modelling to simplify the parameterization of models, to capture plant-plant interactions at the individual level, and to explain community dynamics under global change.

Download Full-text