Dominant species determine ecosystem stability across scales in Inner Mongolian grassland

Abstract

There is an urgent need to extend knowledge on ecosystem temporal stability to larger spatial scales because presently available local-scale studies generally do not provide effective guide for management and conservation decisions at the level of an entire region with diverse plant communities. We investigated temporal stability of plant biomass production across spatial scales and hierarchical levels of community organization and analyzed impacts of dominant species, species diversity and climatic factors using a multi-site survey of Inner Mongolian grassland. We found that temporal stability at a large spatial scale, i.e. a large area aggregating multiple local communities, was related to temporal stability of and asynchrony among spatially separated local communities and large-scale population dynamics of dominant species, yet not to species richness. Additionally, a lower mean and higher variation of yearly precipitation destabilized communities at local and large scales by destabilizing dominant species population dynamics. We argue that, for semi-arid temperate grassland, dynamics and precipitation responses of dominant species and asynchrony among local communities stabilize ecosystems at large spatial scales. Our results indicate that reduced amounts and increased variation of precipitation may present key threats to the sustainable provision of biological products and services to human well-being in this region.