Effect of behavioural plasticity and environmental properties on the resilience of communities under habitat loss and fragmentation

Emerson Campos Barbosa Júnior, Vitor Passos Rios, Pavel Dodonov, Bruno Vilela and Hilton F Japyassú

Ecological Modelling, 2022, vol. 472, issue C

Abstract: Being plastic in face of environmental changes that negatively affect communities can increase the average fitness within populations and alter the resilience of the ecological system. Understanding this effect is important for making predictions about future landscapes. We used simulation studies to assess the effects of dispersal behaviour plasticity on community resilience, in the context of disturbance (habitat loss and fragmentation) caused by humans. We also evaluated how resilience is affected by the cost of plasticity, trophic level and specialisation, and by the extent and clustering of the disturbance, through an agent-based model with 10 model species and 3 trophic levels. We found that community resilience is best explained by plasticity, plasticity cost, disturbance extent, and disturbance clustering, with increased community resilience when the individuals have plasticity. This effect increases with disturbance extent – the resilience increases as the degree of plasticity increases. Herbivores and generalists were more resilient than carnivores and specialists. We conclude that all explanatory variables used in this study are relevant to resilience in a world suffering rapid changes caused by humans.

Keywords: Behavioural ecology; Resilience; Perturbation; Habitat loss; Phenotypic plasticity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:472:y:2022:i:c:s0304380022001788

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2022.110071

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