Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada.
Am Nat. 2012 Sep;180(3):316-27. doi: 10.1086/666986. Epub 2012 Jul 18.
Disturbances often lead to changes in average values of community properties; however, disturbances can also affect the predictability of a community's response. We performed a meta-analysis to determine how response predictability, defined as among-replicate variance in diversity and community abundance, is affected by species removals, species invasions, nutrient addition, temperature increase, and habitat loss/fragmentation, and we further determined whether response predictability differed according to habitat and trophic role. Species removals and nutrient addition decreased response predictability, while species invasions increased response predictability. In aquatic habitats, disturbances generally led to a decrease in response predictability, whereas terrestrial habitats showed no overall change in response predictability, suggesting that differences in food web and ecosystem structure affect how communities respond to disturbance. Producers were also more likely to show decreases in response predictability, particularly following species removals, highlighting widespread destabilizing effects of species loss at the producer level. Overall, our results show that whether disturbances cause changes in response predictability is highly contingent on disturbance type, habitat, and trophic role. The nature of changes in response predictability--for example, strong decreases following species invasions and increases following species removals--will likely play a major role in how communities recover from disturbance.
干扰常常导致群落属性的平均值发生变化；然而，干扰也会影响群落响应的可预测性。我们进行了一项荟萃分析，以确定多样性和群落丰度的重复间方差（即响应可预测性）如何受到物种去除、物种入侵、养分添加、温度升高和生境丧失/破碎化的影响，我们还进一步确定了响应可预测性是否根据生境和营养级而有所不同。物种去除和养分添加降低了响应可预测性，而物种入侵则提高了响应可预测性。在水生生境中，干扰通常会降低响应可预测性，而在陆生生境中，响应可预测性则没有总体变化，这表明食物网和生态系统结构的差异会影响群落对干扰的响应方式。生产者也更有可能表现出响应可预测性降低，特别是在物种去除之后，这突出了生产者层面物种丧失的广泛不稳定性影响。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，干扰是否会导致响应可预测性的变化在很大程度上取决于干扰类型、生境和营养级。响应可预测性变化的性质——例如，物种入侵后强烈降低，物种去除后增加——可能在群落从干扰中恢复的方式中发挥主要作用。
