Community stability
Three out of four global change treatments (SNW, NW, W) and CTL
communities were stable based on eigenvalue analysis, while SW
communities were unstable (Table 2). Out of the stable communities, NW
and W communities were more stable, while SNW communities were less
stable than CTL, suggesting treatments with lower magnitude shifts in
species group abundance are more stable over time.
The SW treatment was the only unstable community, likely due to a lack
of self-limitation (intraspecific competition) of the dominant species
(Table S2). We can further see this in that the maximum equilibrium
abundance of the dominant species is lower in SW versus other global
change plots (Fig S9). Thus, the strong rate of increase over the last
15 years suggests that the dominant species has likely overshot its
carrying capacity in SW plots and will ultimately to decline again to
regain community stability.