High proportion of smaller ranged hummingbird species coincides with ecological specialization across the Americas

Ecological communities that experience stable climate conditions have been speculated to preserve more specialized interspecific associations and have higher proportions of smaller ranged species (SRS). Thus, areas with disproportionally large numbers of SRS are expected to coincide geographically with a high degree of community-level ecological specialization, but this suggestion remains poorly supported with empirical evidence. Here, we analysed data for hummingbird resource specialization, range size, contemporary climate, and Late Quaternary climate stability for 46 hummingbird–plant mutualistic networks distributed across the Americas, representing 130 hummingbird species (ca 40% of all hummingbird species). We demonstrate a positive relationship between the proportion of SRS of hummingbirds and community-level specialization, i.e. the division of the floral niche among coexisting hummingbird species. This relationship remained strong even when accounting for climate, furthermore, the effect of SRS on specialization was far stronger than the effect of specialization on SRS, suggesting that climate largely influences specialization through species'' range-size dynamics. Irrespective of the exact mechanism involved, our results indicate that communities consisting of higher proportions of SRS may be vulnerable to disturbance not only because of their small geographical ranges, but also because of their high degree of specialization.     

Climate change and elevational diversity capacity: do weedy species take up the slack?

Climate change leads to species range shifts and consequently to changes in diversity. For many systems, increases in diversity capacity have been forecast, with spare capacity to be taken up by a pool of weedy species moved around by humans. Few tests of this hypothesis have been undertaken, and in many temperate systems, climate change impacts may be confounded by simultaneous increases in human-related disturbance, which also promote weedy species. Areas to which weedy species are being introduced, but with little human disturbance, are therefore ideal for testing the idea. We make predictions about how such diversity capacity increases play out across elevational gradients in non-water-limited systems. Then, using modern and historical data on the elevational range of indigenous and naturalized alien vascular plant species from the relatively undisturbed sub-Antarctic Marion Island, we show that alien species have contributed significantly to filling available diversity capacity and that increases in energy availability rather than disturbance are the probable underlying cause.     

Nested species interactions promote feasibility over stability during the assembly of a pollinator community

The foundational concepts behind the persistence of ecological communities have been based on two ecological properties: dynamical stability and feasibility. The former is typically regarded as the capacity of a community to return to an original equilibrium state after a perturbation in species abundances and is usually linked to the strength of interspecific interactions. The latter is the capacity to sustain positive abundances on all its constituent species and is linked to both interspecific interactions and species demographic characteristics. Over the last 40 years, theoretical research in ecology has emphasized the search for conditions leading to the dynamical stability of ecological communities, while the conditions leading to feasibility have been overlooked. However, thus far, we have no evidence of whether species interactions are more conditioned by the community''s need to be stable or feasible. Here, we introduce novel quantitative methods and use empirical data to investigate the consequences of species interactions on the dynamical stability and feasibility of mutualistic communities. First, we demonstrate that the more nested the species interactions in a community are, the lower the mutualistic strength that the community can tolerate without losing dynamical stability. Second, we show that high feasibility in a community can be reached either with high mutualistic strength or with highly nested species interactions. Third, we find that during the assembly process of a seasonal pollinator community located at The Zackenberg Research Station (northeastern Greenland), a high feasibility is reached through the nested species interactions established between newcomer and resident species. Our findings imply that nested mutualistic communities promote feasibility over stability, which may suggest that the former can be key for community persistence.     

Ecosystem change and stability over multiple decades in the Swedish subarctic: complex processes and multiple drivers

The subarctic environment of northernmost Sweden has changed over the past century, particularly elements of climate and cryosphere. This paper presents a unique geo-referenced record of environmental and ecosystem observations from the area since 1913. Abiotic changes have been substantial. Vegetation changes include not only increases in growth and range extension but also counterintuitive decreases, and stability: all three possible responses. Changes in species composition within the major plant communities have ranged between almost no changes to almost a 50 per cent increase in the number of species. Changes in plant species abundance also vary with particularly large increases in trees and shrubs (up to 600%). There has been an increase in abundance of aspen and large changes in other plant communities responding to wetland area increases resulting from permafrost thaw. Populations of herbivores have responded to varying management practices and climate regimes, particularly changing snow conditions. While it is difficult to generalize and scale-up the site-specific changes in ecosystems, this very site-specificity, combined with projections of change, is of immediate relevance to local stakeholders who need to adapt to new opportunities and to respond to challenges. Furthermore, the relatively small area and its unique datasets are a microcosm of the complexity of Arctic landscapes in transition that remains to be documented.     

Consequences of plant invasions on compartmentalization and species’ roles in plant–pollinator networks

Compartmentalization—the organization of ecological interaction networks into subsets of species that do not interact with other subsets (true compartments) or interact more frequently among themselves than with other species (modules)—has been identified as a key property for the functioning, stability and evolution of ecological communities. Invasions by entomophilous invasive plants may profoundly alter the way interaction networks are compartmentalized. We analysed a comprehensive dataset of 40 paired plant–pollinator networks (invaded versus uninvaded) to test this hypothesis. We show that invasive plants have higher generalization levels with respect to their pollinators than natives. The consequences for network topology are that—rather than displacing native species from the network—plant invaders attracting pollinators into invaded modules tend to play new important topological roles (i.e. network hubs, module hubs and connectors) and cause role shifts in native species, creating larger modules that are more connected among each other. While the number of true compartments was lower in invaded compared with uninvaded networks, the effect of invasion on modularity was contingent on the study system. Interestingly, the generalization level of the invasive plants partially explains this pattern, with more generalized invaders contributing to a lower modularity. Our findings indicate that the altered interaction structure of invaded networks makes them more robust against simulated random secondary species extinctions, but more vulnerable when the typically highly connected invasive plants go extinct first. The consequences and pathways by which biological invasions alter the interaction structure of plant–pollinator communities highlighted in this study may have important dynamical and functional implications, for example, by influencing multi-species reciprocal selection regimes and coevolutionary processes.     

卧龙竹类非结构性碳水化合物与叶氮含量对海拔的响应

山地由于海拔变化导致的环境因子显著差异,成为研究植物环境适应性及其对全球气候变化响应的理想区域。以卧龙自然保护区内油竹子(Fargesia angustissima Yi)与华西箭竹(Fargesia nitida(Mitford)Keng f.ex Yi)为对象,沿海拔梯度研究了两种竹子在各自海拔分布区间内组织非结构性碳水化合物(NSC)含量、比叶面积(SLA)、以及基于单位叶面积和单位叶质量的叶氮含量(Narea,Nmass)。除油竹子叶NSC,Narea和华西箭竹Nmass随海拔升高不发生变化外,两种竹子其它调查因子对海拔的响应均是非线性的,反映了环境因子随海拔的非线性变化。所有调查因子对海拔的响应均表现出明显的种间差别,这一结果除了种间生理生态特性差别的原因外,可能意味着两竹种对温度的敏感性不同。高海拔种(华西箭竹)比(中)低海拔种(油竹子)对全球气候暖化可能更加敏感。     

Bioclimate and growth history affect beech lifespan in the Italian Alps and Apennines

When site factors reduce growth rates, tree lifespan tends to increase. This study investigates processes leading to such inverse relationship in Fagus sylvatica stands distributed along two elevation gradients, with an emphasis on climatic response, suppression periods, and growth trends. Dendrochronological records from old‐growth beech populations sampled at different elevations within two different bioclimatic regions (Alps vs. Apennines), were used to investigate factors that control tree lifespan. Differences between old‐growth (12) and nearby managed (15) stands were used to assess effects of silvicultural practices on maximum age. Logging reduced tree lifespan not only by removing older trees, but also by reducing the number of years beech individuals spent in the shaded understory. Tree lifespan and growth rates were affected by climate (spring–summer temperature) and were inversely related to one another along elevation gradients. The greatest lifespan was observed in old‐growth high‐mountain populations, and was related not only to slower growth due to a shorter growing season, but also to multidecadal periods of growth suppression during the initial development stages in the understory (i.e., slower growth rates at the youngest cambial ages). Past unfavorable climatic periods (in this case, the Little Ice Age) also helped increase tree lifespan. Using a linear model, we estimated a reduction in beech lifespan of 23 ± 5 years for each degree of warming. Basal area increment of trees with the maximum observed lifespan showed an increasing trend over time. Because growth of old (>300 years) trees has increased in the Alps, while it has recently declined in the Apennines, different bioclimatic regions can have opposite responses to global climatic change. In the next decades, if warming continues, beech lifespan could be reduced in the Alps by faster growth and in the Apennines by drought‐induced mortality.