Exploring how food web complexity emerges and evolves in island ecosystems remains a major challenge in ecology.Food webs assembled from multiple islands are commonly recognized as highly complex trophic networks that...Exploring how food web complexity emerges and evolves in island ecosystems remains a major challenge in ecology.Food webs assembled from multiple islands are commonly recognized as highly complex trophic networks that are dynamic in both space and time.In the context of global climate change,it remains unclear whether food web complexity will decrease in a monotonic fashion when undergoing habitat destruction(e.g.,the inundation of islands due to sea-level rise).Here,we develop a simple yet comprehensive patch-dynamic framework for complex food web metacommunities subject to the competition-colonization tradeof between basal species.We found that oscillations in food web topological complexity(characterized by species diversity,mean food chain length and the degree of omnivory)emerge along the habitat destruction gradient.This outcome is robust to changing parameters or relaxing the assumption of a strict competitive hierarchy.Having oscillations in food web complexity indicates that small habitat changes could have disproportionate negative efects on species diversity,thus the success of conservation actions should be evaluated not only on changes in biodiversity,but also on system robustness to habitat alteration.Overall,this study provides a parsimonious mechanistic explanation for the emergence of food web complexity in island ecosystems,further enriching our understanding of metacommunity assembly.展开更多
Aims To explore whether the trade-off between seed and vegetative reproductive modes is flexible in environments with different amounts of available resources to maintain optimal behaviors.Methods A transition matrix ...Aims To explore whether the trade-off between seed and vegetative reproductive modes is flexible in environments with different amounts of available resources to maintain optimal behaviors.Methods A transition matrix model was established to determine the optimal trade-off between seed and vegetative reproduction in resources–variable habitats.Important Findings The model predicts that plants allocate more resources to seed reproduction when available resources are scarce.With increasing resources,more vegetative propagules are produced.However,if resources keep increasing to a harmful level,plants would switch to seeds again.展开更多
基金J.L.is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China(No.32271548&31901175).
文摘Exploring how food web complexity emerges and evolves in island ecosystems remains a major challenge in ecology.Food webs assembled from multiple islands are commonly recognized as highly complex trophic networks that are dynamic in both space and time.In the context of global climate change,it remains unclear whether food web complexity will decrease in a monotonic fashion when undergoing habitat destruction(e.g.,the inundation of islands due to sea-level rise).Here,we develop a simple yet comprehensive patch-dynamic framework for complex food web metacommunities subject to the competition-colonization tradeof between basal species.We found that oscillations in food web topological complexity(characterized by species diversity,mean food chain length and the degree of omnivory)emerge along the habitat destruction gradient.This outcome is robust to changing parameters or relaxing the assumption of a strict competitive hierarchy.Having oscillations in food web complexity indicates that small habitat changes could have disproportionate negative efects on species diversity,thus the success of conservation actions should be evaluated not only on changes in biodiversity,but also on system robustness to habitat alteration.Overall,this study provides a parsimonious mechanistic explanation for the emergence of food web complexity in island ecosystems,further enriching our understanding of metacommunity assembly.
基金National Basic Research Program(2007CB108904-4)Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(KZCX2-YW-415).
文摘Aims To explore whether the trade-off between seed and vegetative reproductive modes is flexible in environments with different amounts of available resources to maintain optimal behaviors.Methods A transition matrix model was established to determine the optimal trade-off between seed and vegetative reproduction in resources–variable habitats.Important Findings The model predicts that plants allocate more resources to seed reproduction when available resources are scarce.With increasing resources,more vegetative propagules are produced.However,if resources keep increasing to a harmful level,plants would switch to seeds again.
