A globally consistent scaling relationship reveals stabilizing effects of dominant species in plant communities

Despite extensive research, the mechanisms stabilizing ecosystems remain uncertain. Taylor’s Power Law (TPL), which describes how variance scales with mean abundance (σ² = aμᵇ), is a pervasive ecological pattern. While TPL has been widely examined within populations, its role across species within communities and its implications for stability remain largely unexplored. A TPL scaling exponent (b) < 2 implies a stabilizing influence of dominant species—hereafter referred to as the dominance effect—where community stability emerges because dominant species are relatively more stable than subordinate species. Using data from over 9,000 permanent vegetation plots worldwide, we quantified within-community TPL, linked variation in the exponent b to dominance effects on temporal stability, and identified the biotic and abiotic drivers shaping b. We found a ubiquitous within-community TPL (mode R² = 0.92) with consistently b < 2, indicating widespread dominance effects. Variation in b, to..., , , # A globally consistent scaling relationship reveals stabilizing effects of dominant species in plant communities

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g7f](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g7f)

## Description of the data and file structure

This repository contains the data and R Markdown code required to reproduce the analyses and figures presented in the manuscript “A Globally Consistent Relationship Reveals Stabilizing Effects of Dominant Species in Plant Communities.”

The dataset provided here includes the results of calculating Taylor’s Power Law (TPL) relationship for 11,676 plant communities derived from the LOTVS database ([https://lotvs.csic.es/](https://lotvs.csic.es/)). Due to ownership by various authors and organisations, the raw data cannot be freely shared. However, extensive metadata describing each plot and the TPL calculation results are shared.

The vegetation plots span 92 distinct datasets, each representing a unique location and experimental design. These dat...,