Disturbance pre-exposure of key species improves resilience of entire communities and metacommunities

Disturbance pre-exposure of key species improves resilience of entire communities and metacommunities | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Disturbance pre-exposure of key species improves resilience of entire communities and metacommunities Johannes Cairns, Shane Hogle, Elizaveta Alitupa, Ville Mustonen, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 17 Jan, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Ecology & Evolution → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Understanding when communities are resilient, that is, able to resist and recover from change when facing disturbances, is critical for solving key global challenges. These include the effects of medication on the gut microbiota and global warming on biodiversity. There is still scant evidence from controlled experiments on factors affecting resilience. Among those hypothesized to affect community response are prior disturbance exposure, priming communities to cope with future disturbance, and species flow between disturbed and undisturbed patches in a metacommunity. The rate of species flow may also be important for whether connectivity protects from or spreads the disturbance effect across a metacommunity. Here we set up an in vitro system to test these questions, manipulating the pre-exposure history of a 23-species model bacterial community and serially passaging each community type in three patches exposed to no, low or high disturbance level (antibiotic concentration) at no, low or high rate of community mixing (connectivity). As expected, pre-exposure, causing evolution of resistance traits, protected species from change in abundance. The more abundant the pre-exposed species had been in the undisturbed community, the less the entire community changed, with protective effects on other species potentially contributing to this effect. In the absence of pre-exposure, increasing rates of community mixing caused an increasing spread of the disturbance across the metacommunity. By protecting communities from the disturbance, pre-exposure cancelled this effect of community mixing rate, keeping the metacommunity close to the undisturbed state. Our findings demonstrate that pre-exposure is an important modifier of ecological resilience in a metacommunity setting. Biological sciences/Ecology/Community ecology Biological sciences/Evolution/Experimental evolution Biological sciences/Systems biology/Population dynamics Biological sciences/Ecology/Ecological genetics Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SI.pdf ED.pdf Extended Data Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 17 Jan, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Ecology & Evolution → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-3847617","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":266249917,"identity":"df125ec2-34bf-4da4-b7e8-4ae825417a87","order_by":0,"name":"Johannes Cairns","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1329-2025","institution":"University of Helsinki","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Johannes","middleName":"","lastName":"Cairns","suffix":""},{"id":266249918,"identity":"4b424056-019b-4d1b-ba35-369924336388","order_by":1,"name":"Shane Hogle","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2595-3863","institution":"University of Turku","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Shane","middleName":"","lastName":"Hogle","suffix":""},{"id":266249919,"identity":"89510069-5f30-4a94-855c-1e75602edba5","order_by":2,"name":"Elizaveta Alitupa","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Turku","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Elizaveta","middleName":"","lastName":"Alitupa","suffix":""},{"id":266249920,"identity":"09df49ef-0015-4cbf-b240-a690d1ed7029","order_by":3,"name":"Ville Mustonen","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-1792","institution":"University of Helsinki","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ville","middleName":"","lastName":"Mustonen","suffix":""},{"id":266249921,"identity":"923b3c6d-d757-4ace-98fc-3e8d3fe2c39f","order_by":4,"name":"Teppo Hiltunen","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7206-2399","institution":"University of Turku","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Teppo","middleName":"","lastName":"Hiltunen","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-01-09 08:00:19","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02624-0","type":"published","date":"2025-01-17T05:00:00+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":74128208,"identity":"9b7648f5-3ad3-41fb-bda7-35776214f45f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-01-18 08:08:58","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1116921,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"MS.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3847617/v1_covered_ee642d3e-4363-4c0c-a458-e4290684b1e5.pdf"},{"id":49444824,"identity":"5d8d0080-84f2-4096-9815-8f8093d43464","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-01-11 01:41:48","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":216756,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"SI.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3847617/v1/eff941cfbdbe4ca1718fbdcc.pdf"},{"id":49444825,"identity":"3b095e13-e2d8-4206-ad5c-403dedc35695","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-01-11 01:41:49","extension":"pdf","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":2211623,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eExtended Data\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"ED.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3847617/v1/ae4811eed9566c0bd074d13e.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Disturbance pre-exposure of key species improves resilience of entire communities and metacommunities","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Understanding when communities are resilient, that is, able to resist and recover from change when facing disturbances, is critical for solving key global challenges. These include the effects of medication on the gut microbiota and global warming on biodiversity. There is still scant evidence from controlled experiments on factors affecting resilience. Among those hypothesized to affect community response are prior disturbance exposure, priming communities to cope with future disturbance, and species flow between disturbed and undisturbed patches in a metacommunity. The rate of species flow may also be important for whether connectivity protects from or spreads the disturbance effect across a metacommunity. Here we set up an in vitro system to test these questions, manipulating the pre-exposure history of a 23-species model bacterial community and serially passaging each community type in three patches exposed to no, low or high disturbance level (antibiotic concentration) at no, low or high rate of community mixing (connectivity). As expected, pre-exposure, causing evolution of resistance traits, protected species from change in abundance. The more abundant the pre-exposed species had been in the undisturbed community, the less the entire community changed, with protective effects on other species potentially contributing to this effect. In the absence of pre-exposure, increasing rates of community mixing caused an increasing spread of the disturbance across the metacommunity. By protecting communities from the disturbance, pre-exposure cancelled this effect of community mixing rate, keeping the metacommunity close to the undisturbed state. Our findings demonstrate that pre-exposure is an important modifier of ecological resilience in a metacommunity setting.","manuscriptTitle":"Disturbance pre-exposure of key species improves resilience of entire communities and metacommunities","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-01-11 01:41:44","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3847617/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-ecology-and-evolution","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"natecolevol","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature Ecology \u0026 Evolution](http://www.nature.com/natecolevol/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Ecology \u0026 Evolution","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature Research","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f1dc6078-56a8-49ef-ad7d-dab9605ec1f7","owner":[],"postedDate":"January 11th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[{"id":28058291,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology/Community ecology"},{"id":28058292,"name":"Biological sciences/Evolution/Experimental evolution"},{"id":28058293,"name":"Biological sciences/Systems biology/Population dynamics"},{"id":28058294,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology/Ecological genetics"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-01-18T08:08:52+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-3847617","link":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02624-0","journal":{"identity":"nature-ecology-and-evolution","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Nature Ecology \u0026 Evolution"},"publishedOn":"2025-01-17 05:00:00","publishedOnDateReadable":"January 17th, 2025"},"versionCreatedAt":"2024-01-11 01:41:44","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1038/s41559-024-02624-0","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02624-0","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-3847617","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-3847617","identity":"rs-3847617","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}