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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
general
Compensatory dynamics are rare in natural ecological communities
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 104, No. 9, Year 2007
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Description
In population ecology, there has been a fundamental controversy about the relative importance of competition-driven (density-dependent) population regulation vs. abiotic influences such as temperature and precipitation. The same issue arises at the community level; are population sizes driven primarily by changes in the abundances of cooccurring competitors (i.e., compensatory dynamics), or do most species have a common response to environmental factors? Competitive interactions have had a central place in ecological theory, dating back to Gleason, Volterra, Hutchison and MacArthur, and, more recently, Hubbell's influential unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography. If competitive interactions are important in driving year-to-year fluctuations in abundance, then changes in the abundance of one species should generally be accompanied by compensatory changes in the abundances of others. Thus, one necessary consequence of strong compensatory forces is that, on average, species within communities will covary negatively. Here we use measures of community covariance to assess the prevalence of negative covariance in 41 natural communities comprising different taxa at a range of spatial scales. We found that species in natural communities tended to co vary positively rather than negatively, the opposite of what would be expected if compensatory dynamics were important. These findings suggest that abiotic factors such as temperature and precipitation are more important than competitive interactions in driving year-to-year fluctuations in species abundance within communities. © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Available Materials
https://efashare.b-cdn.net/share/pmc/articles/PMC1805590/bin/pnas_0603798104_index.html
Authors & Co-Authors
Houlahan, Jeff E.
Canada, Fredericton
University of new Brunswick
Currie, David J.
Canada, Ottawa
University of Ottawa
Cottenie, Karl
Canada, Guelph
University of Guelph
Cumming, Graeme S.
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Ernest, S. K.Morgan
United States, Logan
Utah State University
Findlay, C. Scott
Canada, Ottawa
University of Ottawa
Fuhlendorf, Samuel D.
United States, Stillwater
Oklahoma State University
Gaedke, Ursula
Germany, Potsdam
Universität Potsdam
Legendre, Pierre
Canada, Montreal
University of Montreal
Magnuson, J. J.
United States, Madison
University of Wisconsin-madison
McArdle, B. H.
New Zealand, Auckland
The University of Auckland
Muldavin, Esteban H.
United States, Albuquerque
The University of new Mexico
Noble, David G.
United Kingdom, Thetford
British Trust for Ornithology
Russell, Roly B.
United States, New York
Columbia University
Stevens, Richard D.
United States, Baton Rouge
Louisiana State University
Willis, Trevor J.
Canada, Toronto
University of Toronto
Woiwod, I. P.
United Kingdom, Harpenden
Rothamsted Research
Wondzell, Steven M.
United States, Washington, D.c.
United States Department of Agriculture
Statistics
Citations: 276
Authors: 18
Affiliations: 17
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1073/pnas.0603798104
ISSN:
00278424
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study