2023/06/20 by Frederik De Laender, Camille Carpentier, Timotéo Carletti +6 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Plant and animal studies #Species Distribution and Climate Change
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/ele.14278
openalex publication_date 2023/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Environmental change research is plagued by the curse of dimensionality: the number of communities at risk and the number of environmental drivers are both large. This raises the pressing question if a general understanding of ecological effects is achievable. Here, we show evidence that this is indeed possible. Using theoretical and simulation-based evidence for bi- and tritrophic communities, we show that environmental change effects on coexistence are proportional to mean species responses and depend on how trophic levels on average interact prior to environmental change. We then benchmark our findings using relevant cases of environmental change, showing that means of temperature optima and of species sensitivities to pollution predict concomitant effects on coexistence. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply our theory to the analysis of field data, finding support for effects of land use change on coexistence in natural invertebrate communities.