Turnover of species composition through time is frequently observed in ecosystems. It is often interpreted as indicating the impact of changes in the environment. Continuous turnover due solely to ecological dynamics - species interactions and dispersal - is also known to be theoretically possible, however the prevalence of such autonomous turnover in natural communities remains unclear. Here we demonstrate that observed patterns of compositional turnover and other important macroecological phenomena can be reproduced in large spatially explicit model ecosystems, without external forcing such as environmental change or the invasion of new species into the model. These results imply that the potential role of autonomous turnover as a widespread and important natural process is underappreciated, challenging assumptions implicit in many observation and management tools. Quantifying the baseline level of compositional change would greatly improve ecological status assessments.

中文翻译：

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内在的生态动力学驱动模型元社区的生物多样性周转

在生态系统中经常观察到物种组成随时间变化。它通常被解释为指示环境变化的影响。从理论上讲，仅由于生态动力学（物种相互作用和扩散）而导致的连续周转也是可能的，但是在自然界中这种自主周转的普遍性仍不清楚。在这里，我们证明了观察到的成分转换和其他重要的宏观生态现象的模式可以在大型的空间显式模型生态系统中重现，而无需外部强迫（例如环境变化或新物种入侵模型）。这些结果表明，自主营业额作为广泛而重要的自然过程的潜在作用并未得到充分认识，许多观察和管理工具中隐含的挑战性假设。量化组成变化的基线水平将大大改善生态状况评估。