What is it about?
We show that the commonest species of fish in our study area have the most stable populations. This is because they are resource limited. Rare species show no evidence of resource limitation, have far less stable populations and their populations change in response to physical conditions.
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Why is it important?
Understanding how the abundance of species is regulated is a key area of importance in applied and theoretical ecology. It is of central importance for fishery science or for understanding ecological impacts of human activities. This is because it informs our understanding as to how many organisms can be harvested or killed without causing the population to collapse.
Perspectives
This work is part of my effort to describe the results of my 40 year study of the Bristol Channel - it represents insights from my life's work. It is based on a huge data set of 38 years of monthly sampling of fish and crustaceans.
Dr Peter Alan Henderson
University of Oxford
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Direct evidence that density-dependent regulation underpins the temporal stability of abundant species in a diverse animal community, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, August 2014, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1336.
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