Temporal heterogeneity increases with spatial heterogeneity in ecological communities

Heterogeneity is increasingly recognized as a foundational characteristic of ecological systems. Indeed, spatial heterogeneity is commonly used in alternative state theory as an early indicator of regime shifts. To evaluate if spatial heterogeneity of communities is a predictor of temporal heterogeneity, we used mixed effects models to synthesize 68 community datasets spanning freshwater and terrestrial systems where measures of species abundance were replicated over space and time. Overall, we found a significant positive relationship between spatial and temporal heterogeneity across all ecosystems. In addition, lifespan and successional stage were related to temporal heterogeneity. Therefore we found evidence that spatial heterogeneity is a potential tool to predict temporal heterogeneity in ecological communities. This data package consists of six files. First we used a (1) R script to derive community dynamic metrics from source files to calculate (2) spatial and temporal heterogeneity over time as well as other measures of the community. We used this derived dataset to run analyses (3) with a R script to study the relationship between spatial and temporal heterogeneity communities. These analyses resulted in three figures, (4) the overall relationship between spatial and temporal heterogeneity, (5) output of mixed models investigating how experimental and biological factors affect this relationship, and (6) figures exploring how lifespan of the study organism affects the relationship between spatial and temporal datasets.