Rapid population recovery of a foundation species from experimental small-scale harvesting.

Ecological stability is central to understanding how disturbances challenge the persistence of populations and communities through time, especially when key species are impacted. The bull kelp Durvillaea incurvata is a foundation, habitat-forming species that provides food and shelter for various species and supports the livelihoods of human communities along the Chilean coast. Harvesting of Durvillaea has raised concerns about the long-term viability of its populations, but the stability responses of Durvillaea to anthropogenic disturbances remain unclear.

Species Removal Dampens the Scale Dependency of Ecological Determinism and Stochasticity in Coastal Communities.

Deterministic and stochastic processes control community dynamics. However, the responses of both processes to the loss of foundation species, which strongly influence community dynamics across spatial scales, are unclear. We experimentally examined how spatial extent and foundation species removal affect rocky-intertidal community dynamics over 3 years in eight field sites spanning ~1000 km along the southeastern Pacific.

Foundation species canopies affect understory beta diversity differently depending on species mobility.

Beta diversity measures the spatial variation in species composition. Because it influences several community attributes, studies are increasingly investigating its drivers. Spatial environmental heterogeneity is a major determinant of beta diversity, but canopy-forming foundation species can locally modify environmental properties.