Species demography, not metabolic rate, predicts community dominance independently of initial evenness
- 1Gulbenkian Institute of Molecular Medicine
Abstract
Understanding how species traits shape community properties is a central goal in ecology. But whether traits drive consistent patterns of dominance and assembly regardless of initial species abundances (evenness) remains unclear. We addressed this question using phytoplankton microcosm experiments to disentangle the effects of evenness and traits on community assembly and functioning, focusing on traits related to energy use (photosynthesis, size) alongside demographic parameters. Community assembly was highly deterministic, indicating that initial evenness had little influence on species dominance and final community structure. Instead, evenness drove community functioning. Demography was a stronger predictor of dominance than photosynthetic rates or individual size, suggesting that growth and competitive success depend on multiple metabolic processes that cannot be reduced to simpler proxies. These results show that community structure can emerge predictably across a range of initial conditions, and highlight the importance of demographic metrics over simpler metabolic descriptors for forecasting community outcomes.
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BibTeX
@misc{almeida2026species,
title = {{Species demography, not metabolic rate, predicts community dominance independently of initial evenness}},
author = {D. Almeida and G. Ghedini},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.24.754014},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.754014v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Species demography, not metabolic rate, predicts community dominance independently of initial evenness
AU - D. Almeida
AU - G. Ghedini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/24
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.24.754014
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.24.754014v1
AB - Understanding how species traits shape community properties is a central goal in ecology. But whether traits drive consistent patterns of dominance and assembly regardless of initial species abundances (evenness) remains unclear. We addressed this question using phytoplankton microcosm experiments to disentangle the effects of evenness and traits on community assembly and functioning, focusing on traits related to energy use (photosynthesis, size) alongside demographic parameters. Community assembly was highly deterministic, indicating that initial evenness had little influence on species dominance and final community structure. Instead, evenness drove community functioning. Demography was a stronger predictor of dominance than photosynthetic rates or individual size, suggesting that growth and competitive success depend on multiple metabolic processes that cannot be reduced to simpler proxies. These results show that community structure can emerge predictably across a range of initial conditions, and highlight the importance of demographic metrics over simpler metabolic descriptors for forecasting community outcomes.
ER -