2017 ESA Annual Meeting (August 6 -- 11)

SYMP 7-4 - Temporal turnover in ecological communities

Tuesday, August 8, 2017: 3:10 PM
Portland Blrm 251, Oregon Convention Center
Maria Dornelas, Centre for Biological Diversity, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, Anne E. Magurran, Centre for Biological Diversity, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, Brian McGill, School of Biology and Ecology / Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions/Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine, Orono, ME and Hideyasu Shimadzu, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Background/Question/Methods

Change in community composition is emerging as the most evident way in which biodiversity is changing in the Anthropocene. Extinctions and colonizations, as well as changes in relative abundances of populations drive temporal turnover in ecological communities, and affect spatial patterns in β diversity. We used biodiversity time series in the bioTIME database to dissect ecological turnover within and across communities, in space and time and across taxa.

Results/Conclusions

We found that colonizations and extinctions are balanced in the time series in our database and are rare. The vast majority of populations are either transiently detected (with random sequences of presences and absences), or always present. Most populations have no detectable trend in their abundances. The populations with detectable trends are equally divided among those increasing and those decreasing in abundance. Temporal turnover in ecological communities is therefore the result of a balance between winners and losers, which can be identified as particular species. Compositional changes are also reflected in spatial β diversity patterns, with some communities undergoing biotic homogenization, while others are becoming more dissimilar through time.