ecoregime

Analysis of Ecological Dynamic Regimes

CRAN status R-hub

ecoregime implements the EDR framework to characterize and compare groups of ecological trajectories in multidimensional spaces defined by ecosystem state variables. The EDR framework was introduced in:

ecoregime can be used to assess ecological resilience using ecological dynamic regimes as the system’s reference. This approach was introduced in:

Installation

You can install ecoregime via CRAN:

install.packages("ecoregime")

You can also install the development version of ecoregime with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("MSPinillos/ecoregime")

You can get an overview about its functionality and the workflow of the EDR framework in the package documentation and vignettes.

# Force the inclusion of the vignette in the installation
devtools::install_github("MSPinillos/ecoregime", 
                         build_opts = c("--no-resave-data", "--no-manual"),
                         build_vignettes = TRUE)

# Load the package after the installation
library(ecoregime)

# Access the documentation and vignette
?ecoregime
vignette("EDR_framework", package = "ecoregime")
vignette("Resilience", package = "ecoregime")

Usage

Identify and plot representative trajectories in ecological dynamic regimes.

library(ecoregime)

# Calculate state dissimilarities from a matrix of state variables (e.g., species abundances)
variables <- data.frame(EDR_data$EDR3$abundance)
d <- vegan::vegdist(variables[, -c(1:3)])

# Identify the trajectory (or site) and states in d
trajectories <- variables$traj
states <- as.integer(variables$state)

# Compute RETRA-EDR
RT <- retra_edr(d = d, trajectories = trajectories, states = states,
                 minSegs = 5)

# Plot representative trajectories of the EDR
plot(x = RT, d = d, trajectories = trajectories, states = states, select_RT = "T4",
     traj.colors = "lightblue", RT.colors = "orange", sel.color = "darkgreen",
     link.lty = 1, asp = 1, main = "Representative trajectories - EDR")

Characterize the internal structure of ecological dynamic regimes calculating the dispersion (dDis), beta diversity (dBD), and evenness (dEve) of the individual trajectories.

# Dynamic dispersion considering trajectory "1" as a reference
dDis(d = d, d.type = "dStates", trajectories = trajectories, states = states, reference = "1")
#> dDis (ref. 1) 
#>     0.4083905

# Dynamic beta diversity
dBD(d = d, d.type = "dStates", trajectories = trajectories, states = states)
#>        dBD 
#> 0.07946371

# Dynamic evenness
dEve(d = d, d.type = "dStates", trajectories = trajectories, states = states)
#>     dEve 
#> 0.842375

Compare ecological dynamic regimes.

# Load species abundances and compile in a data frame
variables1 <- EDR_data$EDR1$abundance
variables2 <- EDR_data$EDR2$abundance
variables3 <- EDR_data$EDR3$abundance
all_variables <- data.frame(rbind(variables1, variables2, variables3))

# Calculate dissimilarities between every pair of states
d <- vegan::vegdist(all_variables[, -c(1:3)])

# Compute dissimilarities between EDRs:
dist_edr(d = d, d.type = "dStates",
         trajectories = all_variables$traj, states = all_variables$state, 
         edr = all_variables$EDR, metric = "dDR", symmetrize = NULL)
#>           1         2         3
#> 1 0.0000000 0.5895458 0.6467200
#> 2 0.5700499 0.0000000 0.2768759
#> 3 0.6317846 0.5050273 0.0000000

Assess ecological resilience to pulse disturbances.

# Species abundances for disturbed communities
disturbed <- EDR_data$EDR3_disturbed$abundance[disturbed_states %in% c(0, 1, 14)]

# Species abundances for disturbed and reference communities
variables$disturbed_states <- 0
disturbed_ref <- rbind(variables, disturbed)

# Calculate dissimilarities between every pair of states
d <- vegan::vegdist(disturbed_ref[, -c(1:3, 16)])

# Use one or more representative trajectories as the reference
RT_ref <- define_retra(RT$T4$Segments)

# Resistance
resistance(d = d, trajectories = disturbed_ref$traj, states = disturbed_ref$state,
           disturbed_trajectories = unique(disturbed$traj),
           disturbed_states = disturbed[disturbed_states == 1]$state)
#>   disturbed_trajectories        Rt
#> 1                     31 0.9578947
#> 2                     32 0.8117647
#> 3                     33 0.6928105

# Amplitude
amplitude(d = d, trajectories = disturbed_ref$traj, states = disturbed_ref$state,
          disturbed_trajectories = unique(disturbed$traj),
          disturbed_states = disturbed[disturbed_states == 1]$state,
          reference = RT_ref)
#>   disturbed_trajectories reference     A_abs     A_rel
#> 1                     31      newT 0.0275000 0.6531250
#> 2                     32      newT 0.1187553 0.6308877
#> 3                     33      newT 0.2675325 0.8709036

# Recovery
recovery(d = d, trajectories = disturbed_ref$traj, states = disturbed_ref$state,
         disturbed_trajectories = unique(disturbed$traj),
         disturbed_states = disturbed[disturbed_states == 1]$state,
         reference = RT_ref)
#>   disturbed_trajectories states reference      Rc_abs     Rc_rel
#> 1                     31     16      newT -0.46424129 -0.6288659
#> 2                     32     17      newT  0.07232084  0.1065781
#> 3                     33     19      newT  0.24753247  0.6885903

# Net change
net_change(d = d, trajectories = disturbed_ref$traj, states = disturbed_ref$state,
           disturbed_trajectories = unique(disturbed$traj),
           disturbed_states = disturbed[disturbed_states == 1]$state,
           reference = RT_ref)
#>   disturbed_trajectories states reference     NC_abs    NC_rel
#> 1                     31     16      newT 0.49174129 0.7357633
#> 2                     32     17      newT 0.04643449 0.1132549
#> 3                     33     19      newT 0.02000000 0.5000000

Citation

To cite ecoregime in publications use:

Sánchez-Pinillos M, Kéfi S, De Cáceres M, Dakos V (2023). “Ecological dynamic regimes: Identification, characterization, and comparison.” Ecological Monographs, e1589. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1589.

Sánchez-Pinillos M, Dakos V, Kéfi S (2024). “Ecological dynamic regimes: A key concept for assessing ecological resilience.” Biological Conservation, 110409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110409.

Sánchez-Pinillos M (2023). ecoregime: Analysis of Ecological Dynamic Regimes. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7584943.

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 891477 (RESET project).

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