Abstract
Migratory species have the potential to strongly mediate stability of resident communities. However, the seasonal nature of their interactions has limited integration into ecological theory likely due to the large temporal variability and spatial scales involved. Here, we develop a novel framework to partition community dynamics which have migrating species. We extend classical notions of resilience, which measure the rate of convergence to equilibrium, to seasonal systems switching between multiple equilibria using (hybrid) Lyapunov stability theory to capture “far from equilibrium” dynamics. Each transition to a new season consists of perturbation, with a stock imbalance inherited from the previous season. Our new resilience metric is defined from the recovery time following this transition required for the community to approach the new seasonal equilibrium. We apply our method to an Arctic tundra food web with distinct summer and winter dynamics and assess the resilience of the community to longer summer season lengths predicted by climate change scenarios. This simulation scenario emphasizes the relative importance of distinct food web topologies between seasons due to migration. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of develo** a theory of species interactions in seasonal environments, with deep ramifications for central ecological concepts such as resilience.
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No new data were used in this study. Data used to parameterize our model were obtained directly from studies referenced in the main text and in the Supplementary Information.
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Acknowledgements
CH thanks J. Hewlett for many helpful discussions and P. E. Caines for his insight on hybrid systems literature.
Funding
FG and DG acknowledge support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through its Discovery program. DG is funded through a Canada Research Chair. CH was partly funded by P. Legagneux during this research.
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CH developed the ideas and theory and wrote the manuscript. FG and DG contributed to the refinements of the theory and to the editing of the manuscript.
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Hutchison, C., Gravel, D. & Guichard, F. A hybrid dynamical system approach to predicting the resilience of community dynamics with seasonal migrations under climate change. Theor Ecol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-024-00581-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-024-00581-9