Life history traits and functional processes generate multiple pathways to ecological stability

Stability contributes to the persistence of ecological communities, yet the interactions among different stabilizing forces are poorly understood. We assembled mesocosms with an algal resource and 1-8 different clones of the consumer Daphnia ambigua and tracked algal and Daphnia abundances through time. We then fitted coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to the consumer-resource time series. We show that variation in different components of stability (local stability and the magnitude of population fluctuations) across mesocosms arises through variation in life history traits and the functional processes represented by ODE model parameters. Local stability was enhanced by increased algal growth rate and Daphnia mortality and foraging rate. Population fluctuations were dampened by high Daphnia conversion efficiency and lower interaction strengths, low algal growth rate, high Daphnia death rate, and low Daphnia foraging. These results indicate that 1) stability in consumer-resou...

生态群落的稳定性有助于其长期存续，但不同稳定力之间的相互作用机制仍未得到充分阐释。我们构建了包含藻类资源以及1至8个不同克隆的消费者物种模糊水蚤（Daphnia ambigua）的中型实验生态系统（mesocosms），并随时间持续追踪藻类与水蚤的种群丰度动态。随后，我们将耦合常微分方程（ordinary differential equations, ODEs）拟合至该消费者-资源（consumer-resource）系统的时间序列数据。研究表明，各中型实验生态系统间稳定性的不同组分（局部稳定性与种群波动幅度）的差异，源自生活史特征与常微分方程模型参数所表征的功能过程的变异。局部稳定性会随藻类生长速率提升、水蚤死亡率与摄食速率升高而增强。种群波动则会因水蚤转化效率较高、种间相互作用强度较低、藻类生长速率偏低、水蚤死亡率偏高以及水蚤摄食速率偏低而得到抑制。本研究结果表明：1）消费者-资源……