Conceptual Questions
What is community stability?
The ability of a community to maintain its structure and function over time.
What is one of their research questions?
1. How common and complete is functional and compositional recovery?
2. Are functional and compositional recovery linked?
3. Do covariates (ecosystem, methods, organisms, disturbance type) affect degree of recovery?
What is one of their research questions?
1. How correlated or independent are the various components of stability?
2. Does the effective dimensionality of stability change in the face of major perturbations?
What is a pulse disturbance?
Sudden environmental changes that alter community biomass.
What are the dimensions of stability they look at?
True or False: Stability is more complex than originally thought
False
Give an example of a phyical pulse disturbance.
A big storm, a drought, a flood, heat, etc.
What metrics of functional recovery are used?
Abundance and biomass
What are the 6 dimensions of stability assessed?
Temporal variability, spatial variability, compositional turnover, extinctions, invasions, and resistance
What is the difference between community structure and function?
Structure is the assemblage of organisms present and the function is the ecological processes resulting form these dynamics.
What metrics of compositional recovery do they use?
Species indices and dissimilarity
True or False: Perturbations can decrease the dimensionality of stability
At which level is it more probable to find a negative relationship between stability and biodiversity?
A) Ecosystem level
B) Species level
B) Species level
True or False: High functional recovery often correlated with high compositional recovery
False! Compositional recovery coincided with high functional recovery
Was the effective dimensionality of stability higher if its components were related or unrelated?
Unrelated