TY - GEN AB - Managing ecological communities requires fast detection of species that are sensitive to perturbations. Yet, the focus on recovery to equilibrium has prevented us from assessing species responses to perturbations when abundances fluctuate over time. Here, we introduce two data-driven approaches (expected sensitivity and eigenvector rankings) based on the time-varying Jacobian matrix to rank species over time according to their sensitivity to perturbations on abundances. Using several population dynamics models, we demonstrate that we can infer these rankings from time-series data to predict the order of species sensitivities. We find that the most sensitive species are not always the ones with the most rapidly changing or lowest abundance, which are typical criteria used to monitor populations. Finally, using two empirical time series, we show that sensitive species tend to be harder to forecast. Our results suggest that incorporating information on species interactions can improve how we manage communities out of equilibrium. AD - Massachusetts Institute of Technology AD - University of Chicago AD - Université de Montpellier AD - University of California San Diego AD - Massachusetts Institute of Technology AU - Medeiros, Lucas P. AU - Allesina, Stefano AU - Dakos, Vasilis AU - Sugihara, George AU - Saavedra, Serguei DA - 2022-11-01 ID - 13957 JF - Ecology Letters KW - eigenvector KW - forecasting KW - Jacobian matrix KW - population dynamics KW - species interactions KW - time series L1 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/Ecology%20Letters%20-%202022%20-%20Medeiros%20-%20Ranking%20species%20based%20on%20sensitivity%20to%20perturbations%20under%20non%E2%80%90equilibrium%20community.pdf L1 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/ele14131-sup-0001-supplementarysi.pdf L2 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/Ecology%20Letters%20-%202022%20-%20Medeiros%20-%20Ranking%20species%20based%20on%20sensitivity%20to%20perturbations%20under%20non%E2%80%90equilibrium%20community.pdf L2 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/ele14131-sup-0001-supplementarysi.pdf L4 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/Ecology%20Letters%20-%202022%20-%20Medeiros%20-%20Ranking%20species%20based%20on%20sensitivity%20to%20perturbations%20under%20non%E2%80%90equilibrium%20community.pdf L4 - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/ele14131-sup-0001-supplementarysi.pdf LA - eng LK - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/Ecology%20Letters%20-%202022%20-%20Medeiros%20-%20Ranking%20species%20based%20on%20sensitivity%20to%20perturbations%20under%20non%E2%80%90equilibrium%20community.pdf LK - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/ele14131-sup-0001-supplementarysi.pdf N2 - Managing ecological communities requires fast detection of species that are sensitive to perturbations. Yet, the focus on recovery to equilibrium has prevented us from assessing species responses to perturbations when abundances fluctuate over time. Here, we introduce two data-driven approaches (expected sensitivity and eigenvector rankings) based on the time-varying Jacobian matrix to rank species over time according to their sensitivity to perturbations on abundances. Using several population dynamics models, we demonstrate that we can infer these rankings from time-series data to predict the order of species sensitivities. We find that the most sensitive species are not always the ones with the most rapidly changing or lowest abundance, which are typical criteria used to monitor populations. Finally, using two empirical time series, we show that sensitive species tend to be harder to forecast. Our results suggest that incorporating information on species interactions can improve how we manage communities out of equilibrium. PY - 2022-11-01 T1 - Ranking species based on sensitivity to perturbations under non-equilibrium community dynamics TI - Ranking species based on sensitivity to perturbations under non-equilibrium community dynamics UR - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/Ecology%20Letters%20-%202022%20-%20Medeiros%20-%20Ranking%20species%20based%20on%20sensitivity%20to%20perturbations%20under%20non%E2%80%90equilibrium%20community.pdf UR - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13957/files/ele14131-sup-0001-supplementarysi.pdf Y1 - 2022-11-01 ER -