Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31695887›Full record

ArticleEcology and evolution2019

Predicting resilience of ecosystem functioning from co-varying species' responses to environmental change.

Matthew P Greenwell, Tom Brereton, John C Day, David B Roy, Tom H Oliver

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Ecology and evolution, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Matthew P GreenwellSchool of Biological Sciences University of Reading Reading UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5406-6222
Tom BreretonButterfly Conservation Wareham UK.
John C DayNERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Wallingford UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5483-4487
David B RoyNERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Wallingford UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5147-0331
Tom H OliverSchool of Biological Sciences University of Reading Reading UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-7313

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Understanding how environmental change affects ecosystem function delivery is of primary importance for fundamental and applied ecology. Current approaches focus on single environmental driver effects on communities, mediated by individual response traits. Data limitations present constraints in scaling up this approach to predict the impacts of multivariate environmental change on ecosystem functioning. We present a more holistic approach to determine ecosystem function resilience, using long-term monitoring data to analyze the aggregate impact of multiple historic environmental drivers on species' population dynamics. By assessing covariation in population dynamics between pairs of species, we identify which species respond most synchronously to environmental change and allocate species into "response guilds." We then use "production functions" combining trait data to estimate the relative roles of species to ecosystem functions. We quantify the correlation between response guilds and production functions, assessing the resilience of ecosystem functioning to environmental change, with asynchronous dynamics of species in the same functional guild expected to lead to more stable ecosystem functioning. Testing this method using data for butterflies collected over four decades in the United Kingdom, we find three ecosystem functions (resource provisioning, wildflower pollination, and aesthetic cultural value) appear relatively robust, with functionally important species dispersed across response guilds, suggesting more stable ecosystem functioning. Additionally, by relating genetic distances to response guilds we assess the heritability of responses to environmental change. Our results suggest it may be feasible to infer population responses of butterflies to environmental change based on phylogeny-a useful insight for conservation management of rare species with limited population monitoring data. Our approach holds promise for overcoming the impasse in predicting the responses of ecosystem functions to environmental change. Quantifying co-varying species' responses to multivariate environmental change should enable us to significantly advance our predictions of ecosystem function resilience and enable proactive ecosystem management.

Indexed as

Ecosystem functioningecosystem resilienceeffect traitsenvironmental changeenvironmental riskpopulation dynamicsresponse guildsresponse traits

Identifiers

PMID31695887
PMCPMC6822053

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.