Developmental change in predators drives different community configurations

Theoreticians who first observed alternative stable states in simple ecological models warned of grave implications for unexpected and irreversible collapses of natural systems (i.e., regime shifts). Recent ecosystem-level shifts engendering considerable economic losses have validated this concern, positioning bistability at the vanguard of coupled human-environment systems management. While the perturbations that induce regime shifts are known, the ecological forces that uphold alternative stable states are often unresolved or complex and system-specific. Thus, the search continues for general mechanisms that can produce alternative stable states under realistic conditions. Integrating model predictions with long-term zooplankton community experiments, we show that the core feature of ontogenetic development, food-dependent maturation, enables a single community to reach different configurations within the same
constant environment. In one configuration, predators regulate prey to fos...

最早在简单生态模型中观测到替代稳定态（alternative stable states）的理论学家曾警告，自然系统可能会遭遇意外且不可逆的崩溃（即状态转移（regime shifts）），其后果极为严重。近期发生的、造成巨额经济损失的生态系统级状态转移验证了这一担忧，也让双稳态（bistability）成为人类-环境耦合系统管理领域的前沿议题。尽管引发状态转移的扰动因素已为人所知，但维持替代稳定态的生态作用力往往尚未明确，或是极为复杂且具有系统特异性。因此，学界仍在探寻能够在现实环境下催生替代稳定态的通用机制。本研究将模型预测与长期浮游动物群落实验相结合，结果表明：个体发育（ontogenetic development）的核心特征——食物依赖型成熟，可使单个群落在恒定不变的环境中达到多种不同的群落结构。在其中一种群落结构中，捕食者会将猎物种群调控至fos...