White Lydia, O'Connor Nessa E, Yang Qiang, Emmerson Mark C, Donohue Ian
School of Biological Sciences, Institute of Global Food Security, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
CNRS, UMR 7144, Station Biologique, Roscoff, France.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2020 Dec;4(12):1594-1601. doi: 10.1038/s41559-020-01315-w. Epub 2020 Oct 12.
Exploration of the relationship between species diversity and ecological stability has occupied a prominent place in ecological research for decades. Yet, a key component of this puzzle-the contributions of individual species to the overall stability of ecosystems-remains largely unknown. Here, we show that individual species simultaneously stabilize and destabilize ecosystems along different dimensions of stability, and also that their contributions to functional (biomass) and compositional stability are largely independent. By simulating experimentally the extinction of three consumer species (the limpet Patella, the periwinkle Littorina and the topshell Gibbula) from a coastal rocky shore, we found that the capacity to predict the combined contribution of species to stability from the sum of their individual contributions varied among stability dimensions. This implies that the nature of the diversity-stability relationship depends upon the dimension of stability under consideration, and may be additive, synergistic or antagonistic. We conclude that, although the profoundly multifaceted and context-dependent consequences of species loss pose a significant challenge, the predictability of cumulative species contributions to some dimensions of stability provide a way forward for ecologists trying to conserve ecosystems and manage their stability under global change.
数十年来，探索物种多样性与生态稳定性之间的关系在生态学研究中占据着重要地位。然而，这个难题的一个关键组成部分——单个物种对生态系统整体稳定性的贡献——在很大程度上仍不为人知。在这里，我们表明，单个物种会同时在稳定性的不同维度上使生态系统稳定和不稳定，而且它们对功能（生物量）稳定性和组成稳定性的贡献在很大程度上是独立的。通过实验模拟沿海岩石海岸上三种消费者物种（帽贝、滨螺和笠贝）的灭绝，我们发现，从各个物种贡献之和来预测物种对稳定性的综合贡献的能力在不同稳定性维度之间存在差异。这意味着多样性 - 稳定性关系的性质取决于所考虑的稳定性维度，可能是相加的、协同的或拮抗的。我们得出结论，尽管物种丧失所带来的极其多面且依赖于具体情境的后果构成了重大挑战，但累积物种对某些稳定性维度贡献的可预测性为生态学家在全球变化背景下保护生态系统和管理其稳定性提供了一条前进的道路。
