Terrestrial Ecology Unit, Department of Biology, University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium.
Research Unit of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, naXys, ILEE, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
Commun Biol. 2024 May 27;7(1):645. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06305-3.
Throughout succession, communities undergo structural shifts, which can alter the relative abundances of species and how they interact. It is frequently asserted that these alterations beget stability, i.e. that succession selects for communities better able to resist perturbations. Yet, whether and how alterations of network structure affect stability during succession in complex communities is rarely studied in natural ecosystems. Here, we explore how network attributes influence stability of different successional stages of a natural network: symbiotic arthropod communities forming food webs inside red wood ant nests. We determined the abundance of 16 functional groups within the symbiont community across 51 host nests in the beginning and end stages of succession. Nest age was the main driver of the compositional shifts: symbiont communities in old nests contained more even species abundance distributions and a greater proportion of specialists. Based on the abundance data, we reconstructed interaction matrices and food webs of the symbiont community for each nest. We showed that the enhanced community evenness in old nests leads to an augmented food web stability in all but the largest symbiont communities. Overall, this study demonstrates that succession begets stability in a natural ecological network by making the community more even.
在演替过程中，群落经历结构变化，这可能会改变物种的相对丰度及其相互作用方式。人们经常断言，这些变化会带来稳定性，即演替会选择更能抵抗干扰的群落。然而，在自然生态系统中，网络结构的变化如何以及是否会影响复杂群落演替过程中的稳定性，这方面的研究很少。在这里，我们探讨了网络属性如何影响天然网络不同演替阶段的稳定性：在红木工蚁巢内形成食物网的共生节肢动物群落。我们在演替开始和结束阶段，通过 51 个蚁巢，确定了共生体群落中 16 个功能群的丰度。蚁巢年龄是群落组成变化的主要驱动因素：老巢中的共生体群落具有更加均匀的物种丰度分布和更大比例的专性种。基于丰度数据，我们为每个蚁巢重建了共生体群落的相互作用矩阵和食物网。结果表明，老巢中增强的群落均匀性导致除最大的共生体群落之外的所有群落的食物网稳定性增加。总的来说，这项研究表明，演替通过使群落更加均匀，从而在天然生态网络中产生稳定性。
