How does turnover time structure affect ecosystem stability?
Principal Investigators:
David M. Post
Ecosystem stability is a basic ecological concept with important implications for the exploitation, management, and restoration of ecosystems subject to natural and anthropogenic perturbations. Much contemporary research has focused on understanding how food-web characteristics such as species diversity and food-chain length affect ecosystem stability. Ecosystem stability can also be affected by the turnover times (or generation times) of key ecosystem components. There are striking differneces in turnover times of ecosystem components in terrestrial... more
Ecosystem stability is a basic ecological concept with important implications for the exploitation, management, and restoration of ecosystems subject to natural and anthropogenic perturbations. Much contemporary research has focused on understanding how food-web characteristics such as species diversity and food-chain length affect ecosystem stability. Ecosystem stability can also be affected by the turnover times (or generation times) of key ecosystem components. There are striking differneces in turnover times of ecosystem components in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems; however, there is currently no empirical or theoretical framework for assessing how these differences affect ecosystem stability. I propose to use a combination of literature analysis and simulation modeling to understand how turnover times differ among ecosystems and how the general differences affect two important components of ecosystem stability - resistance and resilience. By working broadly in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, I hope to develop and test general patterns and principles concerning how the turnover times of ecosystem components are related to stability.
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Participants and Meetings
Activity | Dates | Further Information |
---|---|---|
Postdoctoral Fellow | 1st September 2000—31st August 2002 | Participant List |
Participant Contact Information
David M. Post | david.post@yale.edu | Unknown |
Products: Publications, Reports, Datasets, Presentations, Visualizations
Type | Products of NCEAS Research |
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Journal Article | Hairston, N.G.; Holtmeier, C.L.; Lampert, W.; Weider, L.J.; Post, David M.; Fischer, Janet; Caceres, Carla; Fox, J.A.; Gaedke, Ursula. 2001. Natural selection for grazer resistance to toxic cyanobacteria: evolution of phenotypic plasticity?. Evolution. Vol: 55(11). Pages 2203-2214. |
Presentations | Post, David M. 2001. When is a piscivore not a piscivore? Integrating the realized trophic position- functional trophic position duality into the food web discourse. Ecological Society of America. Madison, WI. |
Journal Article | Post, David M. 2002. The long and short of food-chain length. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Vol: 17(6). Pages 269-277. |
Journal Article | Post, David M. 2002. Using stable isotopes to estimate trophic position: Models, methods, and assumptions. Ecology. Vol: 83. Pages 703-718. |
Journal Article | Post, David M. 2003. Individual variation in the timing of ontogenetic niche shifts in largemouth bass. Ecology. Vol: 84. Pages 1298-1310. |
Journal Article | Williams, John W.; Post, David M.; Cwynar, L. C.; Lotter, A. F.; Levesque, A. J. 2002. Rapid and widespread vegetation responses to past climate change in the North Atlantic Region. Geology. Vol: 30. Pages 971-974. |
"How does turnover time structure affect ecosystem stability?" is project ID: 3240