College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Ecol Lett. 2024 Apr;27(4):e14424. doi: 10.1111/ele.14424.
Species-to-species and species-to-environment interactions are key drivers of community dynamics. Disentangling these drivers in species-rich assemblages is challenging due to the high number of potentially interacting species (the 'curse of dimensionality'). We develop a process-based model that quantifies how intraspecific and interspecific interactions, and species' covarying responses to environmental fluctuations, jointly drive community dynamics. We fit the model to reef fish abundance time series from 41 reefs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. We found that fluctuating relative abundances are driven by species' heterogenous responses to environmental fluctuations, whereas interspecific interactions are negligible. Species differences in long-term average abundances are driven by interspecific variation in the magnitudes of both conspecific density-dependence and density-independent growth rates. This study introduces a novel approach to overcoming the curse of dimensionality, which reveals highly individualistic dynamics in coral reef fish communities that imply a high level of niche structure.
种间和种内与环境的相互作用是群落动态的关键驱动因素。由于潜在相互作用的物种数量众多（即“维度诅咒”），在物种丰富的组合中分离这些驱动因素具有挑战性。我们开发了一种基于过程的模型，该模型量化了种内和种间相互作用以及物种对环境波动的共同响应如何共同驱动群落动态。我们将该模型拟合到来自澳大利亚大堡礁 41 个珊瑚礁的珊瑚鱼丰度时间序列。我们发现，波动的相对丰度是由物种对环境波动的异质响应驱动的，而种间相互作用可以忽略不计。长期平均丰度的物种差异是由种间同种密度依赖性和密度独立性生长率的幅度变化驱动的。这项研究介绍了一种克服维度诅咒的新方法，该方法揭示了珊瑚礁鱼类群落高度个体的动态，暗示了高度的生态位结构。
