Abstract Species diversity is presently declining and homogenizing globally due to human land use changes and climate change effects. However, the causes of these declines are difficult to determine due to complex ecological interactions. Lepidopterans are a diverse and ecologically important group of insects that are declining in Britain and other parts of Europe. Long-term monitoring data made available in 2003 showed that 66% of observed species declined over the course of 35 years, however, it is not known what effect species losses has on ecosystem stability. Here, we assess long-term moth diversity dynamics in relation to climatic shifts over 20 years, and investigate the importance of stability in maintaining and conserving ecological communities. From 1993 to 2014, moth species data and abundances were recorded over 7,390 trapping nights. Overall, 376 species were recorded over 20-years, identifying seasonal and annual trends in species richness strongly associated with oscillations in temperature. Long-term stability, measured using mean-rank shifts and temporal variability, was indicative of significant positive associations between species diversity and temperature. Using rank shift analyses we were able to not only assess community stability dynamics, but also the individual species dynamics and their contribution to community diversity over time. We also noted generalist feeders were more associated with maintaining diverse species communities subjected to oscillating climatic conditions compared to specialist taxa. Overall, our study shows the benefit of utilizing community-based stability assessments to distil population level information from complex datasets, highlighting the need for long-term monitoring at the community level to explore impacts of environmental change on ecosystem function.

中文翻译：

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生态社区动态：20 年的飞蛾采样揭示了通才对社区稳定的重要性

摘要 由于人类土地利用的变化和气候变化的影响，物种多样性目前在全球范围内正在下降和同质化。然而，由于复杂的生态相互作用，这些下降的原因很难确定。鳞翅目昆虫是一种多样化且具有重要生态意义的昆虫，在英国和欧洲其他地区正在减少。2003 年提供的长期监测数据表明，在 35 年的时间里，66% 的观察物种数量减少了，但是，尚不清楚物种损失对生态系统稳定性的影响。在这里，我们评估了与 20 多年来气候变化相关的长期蛾类多样性动态，并研究了稳定性在维持和保护生态群落方面的重要性。从 1993 年到 2014 年，飞蛾物种数据和丰度记录了超过 7,390 个诱捕夜。总体而言，20 年来记录了 376 个物种，确定了与温度波动密切相关的物种丰富度的季节性和年度趋势。使用平均秩变化和时间变异性衡量的长期稳定性表明物种多样性与温度之间存在显着的正相关。使用等级转移分析，我们不仅能够评估群落稳定性动态，还能够评估个体物种动态及其随着时间的推移对群落多样性的贡献。我们还注意到，与专业分类群相比，多面手饲养者与维持受波动气候条件影响的不同物种群落更相关。总体而言，我们的研究显示了利用基于社区的稳定性评估从复杂数据集中提取种群水平信息的好处，