Predicting community stability from species’ contribution to resistance, resilience and recovery

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Helmut Hillebrand
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions ; Oceanography
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 450803873

• Final Report Year: 2025

Final Report Abstract

Human activities are altering the Earth's biosphere in unprecedented ways, leading to massive reorganisation of species within local communities. As climate change continues, the frequency and intensity of disturbances will increase, posing a challenge to ecosystems worldwide. To accurately predict the consequences of environmental change it is essential to understand ecological stability and its relationship with biodiversity. Ecological stability is a multifaceted concept that aims to capture the ability of an ecosystem to withstand and recover from environmental change. The stability of ecological communities often depends on the diverse responses of their component species. This response diversity can help buffer environmental change and contribute to greater emergent stability than would be expected from species in isolation. However, it remains unclear how individual species influence the overall stability of their communities in the face of disturbance. Understanding species’ contributions to stability was therefore the key objective of this project. First, we established a framework for partitioning species contributions to stability in disturbed communities based on their absolute change in biomass and relative change in proportion following disturbance. Using model simulations of multi-species communities and empirical data from a multi-site experiment, we showed that species contributions to stability are highly context-dependent and vary not only with disturbance type, but also in time and space. Second, we used model simulations on multi-species communities and combined them with results from a meta-analysis of pulse disturbance effects. In both simulations and meta-analysis, community stability was determined by mean species response rather than response diversity. Only in the model simulations did response diversity increase community stability. However, this was limited to weak interspecific interaction strengths. Further, we developed an approach to quantifying the net biodiversity effect on stability and test its application in a phytoplankton microcosm experiment with different levels of species richness and temperature disturbance regimes. The overall net effect of biodiversity on stability was positive, but differed between species richness levels and temperature treatments, highlighting the non-linear relationship between diversity and stability. In summary, this project provides systematic insights into the mechanisms driving community stability, by introducing novel frameworks and by exploring the intricate interplay between individual species responses and interspecific interactions in different ecological contexts. The results highlight that while single species contribute to stability, the collective effect of biodiversity transcends individual responses, and shapes stability as an emergent property of communities.

Publications

• Elemental and biochemical nutrient limitation of zooplankton: A meta‐analysis. Ecology Letters, 25(12), 2776-2792.
  Thomas, Patrick K.; Kunze, Charlotte; Van de Waal, Dedmer B.; Hillebrand, Helmut & Striebel, Maren
  
• Species dominance does not predict species-specific contribution to ecological stability. Oral presentation, SIL conference, Berlin, Germany, 202
  Kunze et al.
  
• Are there thresholds for biodiversity change? Intecol Ecological Conference, Geneva, CH
  Hillebrand et al.
  
• Are there thresholds for biodiversity change? Oikos Ecological Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden
  Hillebrand et al.
  
• Coping with environmental change – how synthesis efforts can foster our understanding of ecological stability. Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa
  Hillebrand et al.
  
• Dominant species are not necessarily the most important contributors to ecological stability. Oral presentation, ASLO conference, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2023
  Kunze et al.
  
• Marine primary producers in a darker future: a meta‐analysis of light effects on pelagic and benthic autotrophs. Oikos, 2023(4).
  Striebel, Maren; Kallajoki, Liisa; Kunze, Charlotte; Wollschläger, Jochen; Deininger, Anne & Hillebrand, Helmut
  
• Thresholds and tipping points are tempting but not necessarily suitable concepts to address anthropogenic biodiversity change—an intervention. Marine Biodiversity, 53(3).
  Hillebrand, Helmut; Kuczynski, Lucie; Kunze, Charlotte; Rillo, Marina C. & Dajka, Jan-Claas
  
• 2024: Quantifying the net biodiversity effect on stability. Oral presentation, British Ecological Society Annual meeting, Liverpool, UK
  Kunze et al.
  
• Accounting for effects of growth rate when measuring ecological stability in response to pulse perturbations. Ecology and Evolution, 14(10).
  Mentges, Andrea; Clark, Adam Thomas; Blowes, Shane A.; Kunze, Charlotte; Hillebrand, Helmut & Chase, Jonathan M.
  
• Partitioning species contributions to ecological stability in disturbed communities. Ecological Monographs, 95(1).
  Kunze, Charlotte; Bahlburg, Dominik; Urrutia‐Cordero, Pablo; Striebel, Maren; Kelpsiene, Egle; Langenheder, Silke; Donohue, Ian & Hillebrand, Helmut
  
• Species contributions to ecological stability
  Kunze, C.