Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series

Xu, Wu-Bing and Blowes, Shane A. and Brambilla, Viviana and Chow, Cher F. Y. and Fontrodona-Eslava, Ada and Martins, Inês S. and McGlinn, Daniel and Moyes, Faye and Sagouis, Alban and Shimadzu, Hideyasu and van Klink, Roel and Magurran, Anne E. and Gotelli, Nicholas J. and McGill, Brian J. and Dornelas, Maria and Chase, Jonathan M. (2023) Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series. Nature Communications, 14: 1463. ISSN 2041-1723

Abstract

While human activities are known to elicit rapid turnover in species composition through time, the properties of the species that increase or decrease their spatial occupancy underlying this turnover are less clear. Here, we used an extensive dataset of 238 metacommunity time series of multiple taxa spread across the globe to evaluate whether species that are more widespread (large-ranged species) differed in how they changed their site occupancy over the 10–90 years the metacommunities were monitored relative to species that are more narrowly distributed (small-ranged species). We found that on average, large-ranged species tended to increase in occupancy through time, whereas small-ranged species tended to decrease. These relationships were stronger in marine than in terrestrial and freshwater realms. However, in terrestrial regions, the directional changes in occupancy were less extreme in protected areas. Our findings provide evidence for systematic decreases in occupancy of small-ranged species, and that habitat protection could mitigate these losses in the face of environmental change.