Species Interactions Determine the Importance of Response Diversity for Community Stability to Pulse Disturbances

Communities can buffer environmental change through diverse responses of their species, often leading to greater stability than expected from individual species. Metrics such as response dissimilarity (variation in magnitude) and divergence (variation in direction) capture this response diversity in fluctuating environments. We test whether response diversity also stabilises community properties under pulse disturbance. Combining model simulations of multi-species communities with empirical data from a meta-analysis, we find that community stability was consistently determined by the species mean response, regardless of interaction strength. Contrastingly, response dissimilarity and divergence were only related to stability in the absence of interspecific interactions. While response diversity increases stability under fluctuating conditions, pulse disturbances cause negative responses in most species and stability is highest when species uniformly exhibit strong resistance or fast recovery. These results highlight that the role of response diversity in promoting community stability depends on disturbance regimes and is shaped by species interactions.