Genomic demography predicts community dynamics in a temperate Montane forest

Species population sizes fluctuate over time, and these temporal dynamics
play a key role in maintaining biodiversity. While multiple modeling
approaches have been developed to characterize fluctuations in forest tree
species abundances, the data required to parametrize these models from
scratch are substantial. Here we introduce a novel approach to modeling
population fluctuations on decadal timescales by relating community-level
dynamics to population-level patterns encoded in plant genomes. Using a
single genomic snapshot to generate contemporary effective population size
estimates in a temperate montane forest, we accurately predict
fluctuations across three censuses. Our approach opens the door for the
use of genomic demography to parametrize multispecies community models in
ecology and shows that population genomic data can provide accurate
predictions for ecological dynamics.