Food-web interactions govern the resistance of communities after non-random extinctions

Anthony R. Ives () and Bradley J. Cardinale
Additional contact information
Anthony R. Ives: Department of Zoology, UW-Madison
Bradley J. Cardinale: Department of Zoology, UW-Madison

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6988, 174-177

Abstract: Abstract Growing concern about how loss of biodiversity will affect ecosystems has stimulated numerous studies1,2,3,4,5. Although most studies have assumed that species go extinct randomly6,7,8, species often go extinct in order of their sensitivity to a stress that intensifies through time (such as climate change)9. Here we show that the consequences of random and ordered extinctions differ. Both depend on food-web interactions that create compensation; that is, the increase of some species when their competitors and/or predators decrease in density due to environmental stress. Compensation makes communities as a whole more resistant to stress by reducing changes in combined species densities. As extinctions progress, the potential for compensation is depleted, and communities become progressively less resistant. For ordered extinctions, however, this depletion is offset and communities retain their resistance, because the surviving species have greater average resistance to the stress. Despite extinctions being ordered, changes in the food web with successive extinctions make it difficult to predict which species will show compensation in the future. This unpredictability argues for ‘whole-ecosystem’ approaches to biodiversity conservation, as seemingly insignificant species may become important after other species go extinct.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02515 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6988:d:10.1038_nature02515

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02515

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().