Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series

Abstract

While human activities are known to elicit rapid turnover in species composition through time, the properties of the species that increase or decrease their spatial occupancy underlying this turnover are less clear. Here, we used an extensive dataset of 238 metacommunity time series of multiple taxa spread across the globe to evaluate whether species that are more widespread (large-ranged species) differed in how they changed their site occupancy over the 10–90 years the metacommunities were monitored relative to species that are more narrowly distributed (small-ranged species). We found that on average, large-ranged species tended to increase in occupancy through time, whereas small-ranged species tended to decrease. These relationships were stronger in marine than in terrestrial and freshwater realms. However, in terrestrial regions, the directional changes in occupancy were less extreme in protected areas. Our findings provide evidence for systematic decreases in occupancy of small-ranged species, and that habitat protection could mitigate these losses in the face of environmental change.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Xu, Wu Bing Blowes, Shane A. Brambilla, Viviana Chow, Cher F.Y. Fontrodona-Eslava, Ada Martins, Inês S. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4328-7286 McGlinn, Daniel Moyes, Faye Sagouis, Alban Shimadzu, Hideyasu van Klink, Roel Magurran, Anne E. Gotelli, Nicholas J. McGill, Brian J. Dornelas, Maria Chase, Jonathan M.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	Funding Information: We thank all of the authors who contributed their data or gave us permission to include it in this study. Conversations with members of the extended ‘Biodiversity Synthesis’ group at iDiv helped us to develop the analyses and presentations in several ways. We acknowledge L. Figueiredo and A. Kazem from the iDiv Data & Code Unit for assistance with curation and archiving of the metacommunities resurveys dataset. W.B.X., S.A.B., J.M.C., R.v.K., and D.M. were supported by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG FZT-118, 20254881); B.J.M. was supported by NSF EPSCOR Track II 201947 and USDA Hatch grant (MAFES #1011538); N.J.G was supported by NSF EPSCOR Track II 201947; I.S.M. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska -Curie grant (no. 894644); H.S. was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP19K21569 and JP21H03402); A.E.M. and M.D. were supported by Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2019-402). A.F.E acknowledges the Fisheries Society of the British Isles Studentship. BioTIME used here was supported by ERC AdG 250189 and PoC 727440 (to A.E.M.), and Leverhulme Trust Research Centre–the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (to M.D.). Some of the data analyzed here were collected using NSF grants to the LTER Network (NSF06‐20443, 8811906, 9411976, 0080529, 0217774, DEB-0423704, DEB-1633026, DEB-1637685, DEB-1256696, DEB-0832652, DEB-0936498, DEB-1832016, DEB-0620652 DEB-1234162, OCE-9982133, OCE-0620959, OCE-1237140, and OCE-1832178). Funding Information: We thank all of the authors who contributed their data or gave us permission to include it in this study. Conversations with members of the extended ‘Biodiversity Synthesis’ group at iDiv helped us to develop the analyses and presentations in several ways. We acknowledge L. Figueiredo and A. Kazem from the iDiv Data & Code Unit for assistance with curation and archiving of the metacommunities resurveys dataset. W.B.X., S.A.B., J.M.C., R.v.K., and D.M. were supported by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG FZT-118, 20254881); B.J.M. was supported by NSF EPSCOR Track II 201947 and USDA Hatch grant (MAFES #1011538); N.J.G was supported by NSF EPSCOR Track II 201947; I.S.M. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sklodowska -Curie grant (no. 894644); H.S. was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP19K21569 and JP21H03402); A.E.M. and M.D. were supported by Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2019-402). A.F.E acknowledges the Fisheries Society of the British Isles Studentship. BioTIME used here was supported by ERC AdG 250189 and PoC 727440 (to A.E.M.), and Leverhulme Trust Research Centre–the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (to M.D.). Some of the data analyzed here were collected using NSF grants to the LTER Network (NSF06‐20443, 8811906, 9411976, 0080529, 0217774, DEB-0423704, DEB-1633026, DEB-1637685, DEB-1256696, DEB-0832652, DEB-0936498, DEB-1832016, DEB-0620652 DEB-1234162, OCE-9982133, OCE-0620959, OCE-1237140, and OCE-1832178). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).
Dates:	Accepted: 1 March 2023 Published: 16 March 2023
Institution:	The University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York)
Depositing User:	Pure (York)
Date Deposited:	02 Jun 2023 08:20
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2025 23:13
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37127-2
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41467-023-37127-2
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:199862

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Description: Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series

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Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series

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