Practicing Success
What characteristic should a stable community exhibit? |
High variation in productivity from year to year Resistance or resilience to occasional disturbances High susceptibility to invasions by alien species Constant changes in species composition |
Resistance or resilience to occasional disturbances |
The correct answer is Option (2) - Resistance or resilience to occasional disturbances A stable community should not show too much variation in productivity from year to year; it must be either resistant or resilient to occasional disturbances (natural or man-made), and it must also be resistant to invasions by alien species. We don’t know how these attributes are linked to species richness in a community, but David Tilman’s long-term ecosystem experiments using outdoor plots provide some tentative answers. Tilman found that plots with more species showed less year-to-year variation in total biomass. He also showed that in his experiments, increased diversity contributed to higher productivity. |