The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Environmental variation in ecological communities and inferences from single-species data

På svenska

Author

  • Karen C. Abbott
  • Jörgen Ripa
  • Anthony R. Ives

Summary, in English

Data are often collected for a single species within an ecological community, so quantitative tools for drawing inferences about the unobserved portions of the community from single-species data are valuable. In this paper, we present and examine a method for estimating community dimension (the number of strongly interacting species or groups) from time series data on a single species. The dynamics of one species can be strongly affected by environmental stochasticity acting not only on itself, but also on other species with which it interacts. By fully accounting for the effects of stochasticity on populations embedded in a community, our approach gives better estimates of community dimension than commonly used methods. Using a combination of time series data and simulations, we show that failing to properly account for stochasticity when attempting to relate population dynamics to attributes of the community can give misleading information about community dimension.

Publishing year

2009

Language

English

Pages

1268-1278

Publication/Series

Ecology

Volume

90

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Ecological Society of America

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • time series analysis
  • dynamics
  • population
  • environmental stochasticity
  • ARMA
  • community dimension

Status

Published

Research group

  • Theoretical Population Ecology and Evolution Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0012-9658