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Colonization, covariance and colour: Environmental and ecological drivers of diversity–stability relationships

Mike Fowler Orcid Logo, Lasse Ruokolainen

Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume: 324

Swansea University Author: Mike Fowler Orcid Logo

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Abstract

Understanding how the diversity of species in a community affects the size of total biomass fluctuations is a Results from previous theoretical work suggests that diversity will generally have a stabilising effect (adding species will reduce the variability in total biomass fluctuations). We relax s...

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Published in: Journal of Theoretical Biology
ISSN: 0022-5193
Published: 2013
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa14733
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Abstract: Understanding how the diversity of species in a community affects the size of total biomass fluctuations is a Results from previous theoretical work suggests that diversity will generally have a stabilising effect (adding species will reduce the variability in total biomass fluctuations). We relax some of the important simplifying assumptions that these results are based on, replacing them with more biologically realistic assumptions in model competitive communities. Adding relevant biological complexity alters previous predictions by introducing both positive and negative diversity–stability patterns under specific circumstances. Our work highlights that community assembly rules that are explicitly related to species' responses to environmental variation drive a much wider range of diversity–stability patterns than previously predicted, qualitatively and quantitatively. This helps to explain the range of results that have been observed in experimental and studies. Our modelling approach provides clear, novel questions and predictions that can be verified experimentally.
Keywords: Biomass stability, Community assembly, Environmental stochasticity, Portfolio effect, Overyielding
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
End Page: 41