The imbalance of nature: The Role of Species Environmental Responses for Ecosystem Stability

Understanding the mechanisms underlying ecosystem stability is crucial in predicting ecological responses to environmental fluctuations. While the diversity-stability relationship has been widely studied, the role of species’ fundamental responses to the environment remains underexplored. Here, we investigate how the distribution of fundamental responses, captured by a novel metric—imbalance—drives ecosystem stability through asynchrony and population stability. Using a microcosm experiment with protist communities, we manipulated species richness and response distributions (defined as interspecific variation in species performance curves) under fluctuating temperature and different nutrient concentrations. Our results show that lower imbalance, achieved through asynchrony or high population stability, causes higher temporal stability, while richness has no effect on stability. Structural equation modelling revealed that imbalance decreases stability indirectly via increasing synchrony and decreasing population stability, explaining 90% of observed variation. Comparing imbalance derived from single versus multispecies communities demonstrates that fundamental species responses are primary drivers of stability, challenging traditional paradigms emphasizing interspecific interactions. This study provides mechanistic links between species’ responses, environmental variability, and ecosystem stability, offering new insights into the responses of ecological systems to environmental change.