Reconciling links between diversity and population stability across global plant communities

作者：Xiaobin Pan, Yann Hautier, Jan Lepš, Shaopeng Wang, Kathryn E. Barry, Manuele Bazzichetto, Stefano Chelli, Jiří Doležal, Nico Eisenhauer, Franz Essl, Felícia M. Fischer, Oscar Godoy, Daniel Gómez, Lars Götzenberger, Clara Lombao Gracia, Anaclara Guido, Lauren M. Hallett, Susan Harrison, Miao He, Andy Hector, Pubin Hong, Forest Isbell, George A. Kowalchuk, Victor Lecegui, Xiaofei Li, Maowei Liang, Frédérique Louault, Maria Májeková, Rob Marrs, Neha Mohanbabu, Akira Mori, Robin J. Pakeman, Alain Paquette, Begoña Peco, Josep Peñuelas, Valério D. Pillar, Marta Rueda, W. Schmidt, Jules Segrestin, Marta Gaia Sperandii, Enrique Valencia, V. Vandvik, Shengnan Wang, David Ward, Susan Wiser, Ben A. Woodcock, Chong Xu, Truman P. Young, Fei‐Hai Yu, Liting Zheng, Zhiwei Zhong, Francesco de Bello · 发表于：New Phytologist · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1111/nph.70921 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Species Distribution and Climate Change、Plant and animal studies

Maintaining ecological stability is essential for sustaining ecosystem functions and the benefits they provide to society. Ecological theory predicts that plant diversity destabilizes local populations, yet empirical studies report variable effects. We hypothesize that this discrepancy arises at least in part from differences captured by different diversity (average vs cumulative richness, i.e. the mean annual richness vs the cumulative richness across years) and stability metrics (abundance-unweighted vs weighted mean population stability). To test this, we analyzed data from > 8000 permanent vegetation plots across biomes on five continents. We found a negative (i.e. destabilizing) diversity-stability relationship when using abundance-weighted rather than unweighted measures of population stability, which are more influenced by dominant species. Similarly, cumulative richness - capturing total species occurrence over time and long-term turnover - reveals a stronger destabilizing effect compared to average annual richness. Our findings reveal that, when specific metrics of diversity and stability are considered, more species and potentially the associated increase in interspecific competition tend to destabilize populations across natural ecosystems world-wide - particularly those of dominant species.