TY - JOUR
T1 - Changing climate and reorganized species interactions modify community responses to climate variability
AU - Wang, Junna
AU - Grimm, Nancy B.
AU - Lawler, Sharon P.
AU - Dong, Xiaoli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - While an array of ecological mechanisms has been shown to stabilize natural community dynamics, how the effectiveness of these mechanisms—including both their direction (stabilizing vs. destabilizing) and strength—shifts under a changing climate remains unknown. Using a 35-y dataset (1985 to 2019) from a desert stream in central Arizona (USA), we found that as annual mean air temperature rose 1°C and annual mean precipitation reduced by 40% over the last two decades, macroinvertebrate communities experienced dramatic changes, from relatively stable states during the first 15 y of this study to wildly fluctuating states highly sensitive to climate variability in the last 10 y. Asynchronous species responses to climatic variability, the primary mechanism historically undergirding community stability, greatly weakened. The emerging climate regime—specifically, concurrent warming and prolonged multiyear drought—resulted in community-wide synchronous responses and reduced taxa richness. Diversity loss and new establishment of competitors reorganized species interactions. Unlike manipulative experiments that often suggest stabilizing roles of species interactions, we found that reorganized species interactions switched from stabilizing to destabilizing influences, further amplifying community fluctuations. Our study provides evidence of climate change-induced modifications of mechanisms underpinning long-term community stability, resulting in an overall destabilizing effect.
AB - While an array of ecological mechanisms has been shown to stabilize natural community dynamics, how the effectiveness of these mechanisms—including both their direction (stabilizing vs. destabilizing) and strength—shifts under a changing climate remains unknown. Using a 35-y dataset (1985 to 2019) from a desert stream in central Arizona (USA), we found that as annual mean air temperature rose 1°C and annual mean precipitation reduced by 40% over the last two decades, macroinvertebrate communities experienced dramatic changes, from relatively stable states during the first 15 y of this study to wildly fluctuating states highly sensitive to climate variability in the last 10 y. Asynchronous species responses to climatic variability, the primary mechanism historically undergirding community stability, greatly weakened. The emerging climate regime—specifically, concurrent warming and prolonged multiyear drought—resulted in community-wide synchronous responses and reduced taxa richness. Diversity loss and new establishment of competitors reorganized species interactions. Unlike manipulative experiments that often suggest stabilizing roles of species interactions, we found that reorganized species interactions switched from stabilizing to destabilizing influences, further amplifying community fluctuations. Our study provides evidence of climate change-induced modifications of mechanisms underpinning long-term community stability, resulting in an overall destabilizing effect.
KW - climate change
KW - community stability
KW - community-wide synchronous responses
KW - compensatory dynamics
KW - ecosystem resilience
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85171698661&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2218501120
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2218501120
M3 - Article
C2 - 37722049
AN - SCOPUS:85171698661
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 120
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 39
M1 - e2218501120
ER -