8 - Community diversity and stability: Changing perspectives and changing definitions

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the relationship between community diversity and community stability. Because perspectives on this topic have changed dramatically over the last 50 years, this provides a good topic to investigate if paradigm shifts have occurred in theoretical community ecology. A brief history of perspectives on the relationship between diversity and stability has been provided. A simple model that illustrates several different relationships between diversity and stability, or more properly, relationships between diversity and different definitions of stability has been presented. The goal here is to show that different perspectives on the relationship between diversity and stability are complementary rather than at odds. The history of the sometimes-rocky relationship between theory and empiricism stemming from different definitions of stability has been described. Examples of specific ideas that I think can be tested, or at least explored, to derive insights into the relationship between diversity and stability, regardless of the preferred definition of stability have been provided. Thus, the debate about the effect of diversity on stability is primarily a debate about what is the most relevant definition of stability. There does not have to be one best definition of stability; different definitions may be more appropriate in different situations, and considering multiple definitions applied to the same situation may be instructive. What is clear, however, is that stability is not a single, simple, and easily defined concept.