Projects per year
Abstract
The worldwide distribution of toxicants is an important yet understudied driver of biodiversity, and the mechanisms relating toxicity to diversity have not been adequately explored. Here, we present a community model integrating demography, dispersal and toxicant-induced effects on reproduction driven by intraspecific and interspecific variability in toxicity tolerance. We compare model predictions to 458 species abundance distributions (SADs) observed along concentration gradients of toxicants to show that the best predictions occur when intraspecific variability is five and ten times higher than interspecific variability. At high concentrations, lower settings of intraspecific variability resulted in predictions of community extinction that were not supported by the observed SADs. Subtle but significant species losses at low concentrations were predicted only when intraspecific variability dominated over interspecific variability. Our results propose intraspecific variability as a key driver for biodiversity sustenance in ecosystems challenged by environmental change.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 72-81 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Ecology Letters |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 4 Nov 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2014 |
Keywords
- Community ecology
- Dispersal limitation
- Metals
- Model inference
- Pesticides
- Species abundance distributions
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Dive into the research topics of 'The contribution of intra- and interspecific tolerance variability to biodiversity changes along toxicity gradients'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and environmental stress
1/01/14 → 31/12/16
Project: Research Axis
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Biodiversity, chemicals, and ecosystem functioning. Colloquium of the Institute for Environmental Sciences
Frédérik De Laender (Invited speaker)
5 Feb 2015Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Biodiversity, chemicals, and ecosystem functioning
Frédérik De Laender (Invited speaker)
21 Oct 2014Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA)
Frédérik De Laender (Contributor)
10 Aug 2014Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference