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Counteracting Cascades Challenge the Heterogeneity-Stability Relationship
Jordi Sola1, Tom P Fairchild1, Matthew J Perkins2
1Department of Biosciences, Wallace Building, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, UK.
Ecology Letters
|August 1, 2025
Summary
Spatial heterogeneity does not always enhance ecological stability. Counteracting pathways, including refugia and biodiversity, were offset by reduced native species and consumer impacts, showing complex ecological dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Environmental Science
Background:
- Ecological stability is often linked to spatial environmental heterogeneity.
- This relationship is assumed to enhance stability via refugia, biodiversity, and asynchrony.
- Field experiments in natural multitrophic systems are needed to test this assumption.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally test the effect of spatial heterogeneity on community stability in a natural rocky shore ecosystem.
- To investigate the underlying mechanisms driving the relationship between heterogeneity and stability.
Main Methods:
- Monitored experimental substrates designed to mimic topographic heterogeneity.
- Conducted observations over a three-year period on a rocky shore.
- Analyzed community composition, population stability, species richness, and consumer-prey interactions.
Main Results:
- Contrary to theoretical expectations, spatial heterogeneity had no net effect on community stability.
- Heterogeneity increased stability by providing refugia and boosting species richness.
- However, it decreased stability by reducing a dominant non-native species and suppressing consumers.
Conclusions:
- The positive effects of heterogeneity on stability were counteracted by negative effects, resulting in a neutral net outcome.
- This highlights the complex, multi-causal nature of the heterogeneity-stability relationship.
- Assumptions that increased heterogeneity universally enhances stability should be reconsidered, especially in systems with strong consumer interactions or dominant species.
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