Ecosystem stability in space: α, β and γ variability

摘要: The past two decades have seen great progress in understanding the mechanisms of ecosystem stability local ecological systems. There is, however, an urgent need to extend existing knowledge larger spatial scales match scale management and conservation. Here, we develop a general theoretical framework study variability ecosystems at multiple scales. Analogously partitioning biodiversity, propose concepts alpha, beta gamma variability. Gamma regional (metacommunity) can be partitioned into alpha variability, either multiplicatively or additively. On average, decreases from scales, which creates negative variability-area relationship. Our suggests that understood by investigating influence factors on Diversity provide insurance effects various levels thus generating diversity-stability relationships. As consequence, loss biodiversity habitat impairs scale. Overall, our enables synthetic has practical implications for landscape management.