Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 02139 Cambridge, MA, USA.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 02139 Cambridge, MA, USA
Proc Biol Sci. 2018 Jun 13;285(1880). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0767.
The timing of the first and last seasonal appearance of a species in a community typically follows a pattern that is governed by temporal factors. While it has been shown that changes in the environment are linked to phenological changes, the direction of this link appears elusive and context-dependent. Thus, finding consistent predictors of phenological events is of central importance for a better assessment of expected changes in the temporal dynamics of ecological communities. Here we introduce a measure of structural stability derived from species interaction networks as an estimator of the expected range of environmental conditions compatible with the existence of a community. We test this measure as a predictor of changes in species richness recorded on a daily basis in a high-arctic plant-pollinator community during two spring seasons. We find that our measure of structural stability is the only consistent predictor of changes in species richness among different ecological and environmental variables. Our findings suggest that measures based on the notion of structural stability can synthesize the expected variation of environmental conditions tolerated by a community, and explain more consistently the phenological changes observed in ecological communities.
物种在群落中首次和末次出现的时间通常遵循由时间因素决定的模式。虽然已经表明环境变化与物候变化有关，但这种联系的方向似乎难以捉摸且依赖于背景。因此，找到物候事件的一致预测因子对于更好地评估生态群落时间动态的预期变化至关重要。在这里，我们引入了一种基于物种相互作用网络的结构稳定性度量作为估计与群落存在相容的环境条件范围的指标。我们将该度量作为预测因子，用于预测在两个春季期间，高北极地区植物传粉者群落中每天记录的物种丰富度的变化。我们发现，我们的结构稳定性度量是物种丰富度变化的唯一一致预测因子，而其他生态和环境变量则不一致。我们的研究结果表明，基于结构稳定性概念的度量可以综合预期的环境条件变化，并且更一致地解释生态群落中观察到的物候变化。
