Environmental variability uncovers disruptive effects of species’ interactions on population dynamics

Abstract

How species respond to changes in environmental variability has been shown for single species, but the question remains whether these results are transferable to species when incorporated in ecological communities. Here, we address this issue by analysing the same species exposed to a range of environmental variabilities when (i) isolated or (ii) embedded in a food web. We find that all species in foodwebs exposed to temporally uncorrelated environments (white noise) show the same type of dynamics as isolated species, whereas species in food webs exposed to positively autocorrelated environments (red noise) can respond completely differently compared with isolated species. This is owing to species following their equilibrium densities in a positively autocorrelated environment that in turn enables species–species interactions to come into play. Our results give new insights into species’ response to environmental variation. They especially highlight the importance of considering both species’ interactions and environmental autocorrelation when studying population dynamics in a fluctuating environment.