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

Abbott, Karen C. ; Ripa, Jörgen LU orcid and Ives, Anthony R. (2009) In Ecology 90(5). p.1268-1278
Abstract
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... (More)
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. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
time series analysis, dynamics, population, environmental stochasticity, ARMA, community dimension
in
Ecology
volume
90
issue
5
pages
1268 - 1278
publisher
Ecological Society of America
external identifiers
  • wos:000265816200009
  • scopus:66149093494
ISSN
0012-9658
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
bd9de809-9047-46e8-a604-63615da97fd1 (old id 1426378)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 13:07:39
date last changed
2022-01-27 17:28:44
@article{bd9de809-9047-46e8-a604-63615da97fd1,
  abstract     = {{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.}},
  author       = {{Abbott, Karen C. and Ripa, Jörgen and Ives, Anthony R.}},
  issn         = {{0012-9658}},
  keywords     = {{time series analysis; dynamics; population; environmental stochasticity; ARMA; community dimension}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  pages        = {{1268--1278}},
  publisher    = {{Ecological Society of America}},
  series       = {{Ecology}},
  title        = {{Environmental variation in ecological communities and inferences from single-species data}},
  volume       = {{90}},
  year         = {{2009}},
}