Multi-habitat landscapes are more diverse and stable with improved function

Hackett, Talya D., Sauve, Alix M. C., Maia, Kate P., Montoya, Daniel, Davies, Nancy, Archer, Rose, Potts, Simon G., Tylianakis, Jason M., Vaughan, Ian P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7263-3822 and Memmott, Jane 2024. Multi-habitat landscapes are more diverse and stable with improved function. Nature 633 , pp. 114-119. 10.1038/s41586-024-07825-y

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Abstract

Conservation, restoration, and land management are increasingly implemented at landscape scales.1,2 However, because species interaction data are typically habitat- and/or guild-specific, exactly how those interactions connect habitats and affect the stability and function of communities at landscape-scales remains poorly understood. We combine multi-guild species interaction data (plant-pollinator and three plant-herbivore-parasitoid communities, collected from landscapes with one, two or three habitats), a field experiment and a modelling approach to show that multi-habitat landscapes support higher species and interaction evenness, more complementary species interactions and less variable robustness to species loss. These emergent network properties drive improved pollination success in landscapes with more habitats, and are not explained by simply summing component habitat webs. Linking landscape composition, through community structure, to ecosystem function, highlights mechanisms by which multiple contiguous habitats can support landscape-scale ecosystem services.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Publisher:	Nature Research
ISSN:	0028-0836
Funders:	NERC, Marsden Fund
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 July 2024
Date of Acceptance:	12 July 2024
Last Modified:	05 Sep 2024 09:44
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171031

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