학술논문

Synchrony matters more than species richness in plant community stability at a global scale
Document Type
article
Source
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 117(39)
Subject
Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation
Ecological Applications
Biological Sciences
Ecology
Environmental Sciences
Life Below Water
Life on Land
Carbon Sequestration
Climate Change
Ecosystem
Plant Development
Plants
Soil
evenness
climate change drivers
species richness
stability
synchrony
Language
Abstract
The stability of ecological communities is critical for the stable provisioning of ecosystem services, such as food and forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Greater biodiversity is expected to enhance stability across years by decreasing synchrony among species, but the drivers of stability in nature remain poorly resolved. Our analysis of time series from 79 datasets across the world showed that stability was associated more strongly with the degree of synchrony among dominant species than with species richness. The relatively weak influence of species richness is consistent with theory predicting that the effect of richness on stability weakens when synchrony is higher than expected under random fluctuations, which was the case in most communities. Land management, nutrient addition, and climate change treatments had relatively weak and varying effects on stability, modifying how species richness, synchrony, and stability interact. Our results demonstrate the prevalence of biotic drivers on ecosystem stability, with the potential for environmental drivers to alter the intricate relationship among richness, synchrony, and stability.