Habitat degradation destabilizes complex metacommunities by disrupting dispersal
- 1China University of Mining and Technology
Abstract
Habitat loss and fragmentation are rapidly reshaping ecosystems worldwide, yet their consequences for ecological stability remain unresolved. Classical theory, pioneered by Robert May, established rigorous criteria for stability; however, these apply to spatially well-mixed communities, limiting their relevance to habitat degradation. Here, we develop a metacommunity framework that integrates classical stability theory with spatial dynamics to determine how anthropogenic habitat degradation reshapes ecosystem stability. We show that metacommunities exhibit three distinct dynamical regimes following a perturbation (e.g., drought or forest fire): stable regime (perturbations decay and species persist), reactive regime (perturbations are transiently amplified, which increases extinction risk under repeated disturbances), and unstable regime (perturbations grow, causing extinctions even after a single disturbance). Dispersal fundamentally reshapes these stability transitions, converting unstable communities into reactive ones and reactive communities into stable ones. While homogeneous dispersal progressively stabilizes communities, heterogeneous dispersal maximizes stability at intermediate strengths. We further show that habitat loss and fragmentation can be comparably effective at driving species extinctions by shifting metacommunities from stable to reactive and ultimately unstable regimes, demonstrating that fragmentation per se can be as important as habitat loss. Our findings reveal that reactivity is both an early-warning signal of impending instability and a state of elevated extinction risk under recurrent disturbances. By linking stability transitions to changes in population persistence under nonlinear dynamics, our results bridge classical stability theory with spatial ecology and provide a general framework for predicting how ecological complexity and dispersal jointly govern both ecosystem stability and population persistence under habitat degradation.
Related
- Weak dispersal and landscape size inevitably promote local biodiversity in heterogeneous metacommunities of competing species
- Cascading fishery collapse associated with thermal habitat degradation, marine heatwaves, and predator influx
- Demographic change in an iconic dolphin population driven by habitat degradation following a marine heatwave
- Parental death destabilizes wolf packs despite the benefits of larger pack size
- A competitive PDLIM1-USP14 axis destabilizes ACTN4 to disturb the invasive homeostasis of trophoblast in preeclampsia
BibTeX
@misc{sun2026habitat,
title = {{Habitat degradation destabilizes complex metacommunities by disrupting dispersal}},
author = {Y. Sun and X. Yin and Z. Jin and S. Bian and W. Lin and V. Piskovsky and P. K. Maini},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.64898/2026.11.01.763431},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.01.763431v1},
note = {CC BY-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Habitat degradation destabilizes complex metacommunities by disrupting dispersal
AU - Y. Sun
AU - X. Yin
AU - Z. Jin
AU - S. Bian
AU - W. Lin
AU - V. Piskovsky
AU - P. K. Maini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/01
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.11.01.763431
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.01.763431v1
AB - Habitat loss and fragmentation are rapidly reshaping ecosystems worldwide, yet their consequences for ecological stability remain unresolved. Classical theory, pioneered by Robert May, established rigorous criteria for stability; however, these apply to spatially well-mixed communities, limiting their relevance to habitat degradation. Here, we develop a metacommunity framework that integrates classical stability theory with spatial dynamics to determine how anthropogenic habitat degradation reshapes ecosystem stability. We show that metacommunities exhibit three distinct dynamical regimes following a perturbation (e.g., drought or forest fire): stable regime (perturbations decay and species persist), reactive regime (perturbations are transiently amplified, which increases extinction risk under repeated disturbances), and unstable regime (perturbations grow, causing extinctions even after a single disturbance). Dispersal fundamentally reshapes these stability transitions, converting unstable communities into reactive ones and reactive communities into stable ones. While homogeneous dispersal progressively stabilizes communities, heterogeneous dispersal maximizes stability at intermediate strengths. We further show that habitat loss and fragmentation can be comparably effective at driving species extinctions by shifting metacommunities from stable to reactive and ultimately unstable regimes, demonstrating that fragmentation per se can be as important as habitat loss. Our findings reveal that reactivity is both an early-warning signal of impending instability and a state of elevated extinction risk under recurrent disturbances. By linking stability transitions to changes in population persistence under nonlinear dynamics, our results bridge classical stability theory with spatial ecology and provide a general framework for predicting how ecological complexity and dispersal jointly govern both ecosystem stability and population persistence under habitat degradation.
ER -