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Diversity loss from multiple interacting disturbances is regime-dependent
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  • Luke Lear,
  • Hidetoshi Inamine,
  • Katriona Shea,
  • Angus Buckling
Luke Lear
University of Exeter College of Life and Environmental Sciences

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Hidetoshi Inamine
Pennsylvania State University - Main Campus
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Katriona Shea
Penn State University
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Angus Buckling
University of Exeter
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Abstract

Anthropogenic activities expose many ecosystems to multiple novel disturbances simultaneously. Despite this, how biodiversity responds to simultaneous disturbances remains unclear, with conflicting empirical results on their interactive effects. Here, we experimentally test how one disturbance (an invasive species) affects the diversity of a community over multiple levels of another disturbance regime (pulse mortality). Specifically, we invade stably coexisting bacterial communities under four different pulse frequencies, and compare their final resident diversity to uninvaded communities under the same pulse mortality regimes. Our experiment shows that the disturbances synergistically interact, such that the invader significantly reduces resident diversity at high pulse frequency, but not at low. This work therefore highlights the need to study simultaneous disturbance effects over multiple disturbance regimes as well as to carefully document unmanipulated disturbances, and may help explain the conflicting results seen in previous multiple-disturbance work.
19 May 2023Submitted to Ecology Letters
19 May 2023Submission Checks Completed
19 May 2023Assigned to Editor
19 May 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
19 May 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
11 Jun 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Major
25 Jul 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
25 Jul 20231st Revision Received
26 Jul 2023Assigned to Editor
26 Jul 2023Submission Checks Completed
26 Jul 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
24 Aug 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
05 Sep 20232nd Revision Received
05 Sep 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
05 Sep 2023Submission Checks Completed
05 Sep 2023Assigned to Editor
05 Sep 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
14 Sep 2023Editorial Decision: Accept