Diversity is maintained by seasonal variation in species abundance

BMC Biology

Research Article

Anne E Magurran¹  Maria Dornelas²  Hideyasu Shimadzu³  Peter A Henderson⁴ 

[1] Centre for Biological Diversity and Scottish Oceans Institute, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, KY16 9TH, St Andrews, Fife, UK;Centre for Biological Diversity and Scottish Oceans Institute, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, KY16 9TH, St Andrews, Fife, UK;CESAM, Department of Biology, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal;Centre for Biological Diversity and Scottish Oceans Institute, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, KY16 9TH, St Andrews, Fife, UK;Department of Mathematics, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi Kohoku, 223-8522, Yokohama, Japan;Pisces Conservation, IRC House, The Square, Pennington, SO41 8GN, Lymington, Hants, UK;

关键词: Species coexistence;    Biodiversity;    Fluctuation mediated coexistence;    Storage effect;    Stability;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1741-7007-11-98

 received in 2013-04-09, accepted in 2013-08-09,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSome of the most marked temporal fluctuations in species abundances are linked to seasons. In theory, multispecies assemblages can persist if species use shared resources at different times, thereby minimizing interspecific competition. However, there is scant empirical evidence supporting these predictions and, to the best of our knowledge, seasonal variation has never been explored in the context of fluctuation-mediated coexistence.ResultsUsing an exceptionally well-documented estuarine fish assemblage, sampled monthly for over 30 years, we show that temporal shifts in species abundances underpin species coexistence. Species fall into distinct seasonal groups, within which spatial resource use is more heterogeneous than would be expected by chance at those times when competition for food is most intense. We also detect seasonal variation in the richness and evenness of the community, again linked to shifts in resource availability.ConclusionsThese results reveal that spatiotemporal shifts in community composition minimize competitive interactions and help stabilize total abundance.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Shimadzu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.