Linking Community-Climate Disequilibrium to Ecosystem Function

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Climate Change Biology
• Ecosystem Science

Background:

• Species composition turnover often lags behind climate change, creating community-climate mismatches.
• The impact of these disequilibria on ecosystem functions is understudied, with current methods assuming prior equilibrium.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a theoretical model linking community-climate disequilibrium with ecosystem functioning.
• To investigate how disequilibrium affects ecosystem function under climate change.
• To explore methods for inferring disequilibrium without direct species distribution data.

Main Methods:

• Development of a simple theoretical model connecting community-climate disequilibrium and ecosystem function.
• Analysis of how disequilibrium impacts near-term and long-term ecosystem functioning.
• Model fitting to simulated metacommunity time-series data of climate and ecosystem function.

Main Results:

• Community-climate disequilibrium can impair ecosystem functioning in the short term, even if climate change is predicted to benefit it long-term.
• Responses are most dynamic in slow-turnover communities with significant pre-existing disequilibrium.
• The model demonstrates inferring community-climate disequilibrium from climate and function time-series data.

Conclusions:

• Accurate estimation of community-climate disequilibria is crucial for improving ecological forecasts.
• Dynamic disequilibrium concepts offer a new framework for ecological research.
• Future research should apply these concepts across diverse ecosystems to test novel hypotheses.