Catastrophic volcanic eruptions that warmed the planet millions of years ago shed new light on how plants evolve and regulate climate. Researchers reveal the long-term effects of disturbed natural ecosystems on climate in geological history and its implications for today.
For one, an invasive species could force a lot of other competitors into extinction, dropping the diversity. Then the now dominant invasive species suffers its own decline, leaving much less left.
You’re very much on point.
An aside: have you heard of the Gleason rivet hypothesis?
This is it: it takes about 8 spp to hold up an ecosystem. Because we don’t know what those spp. Are, we want to maintain biodiversity, similar to how we want to have all the rivets on a plane.
Now I think Gleason was a bit off. I think there are spp that can move in and fill the function of dominant spp if they leave. Look at how coyotes fill in the niche of extripated wolves in Yellowstone - they got bigger, started hunting in packs. however you most certainly want to keep everything you have, in terms of BD
I hadn’t heard of that, but it makes sense that there would be some minimal number, which would certainly be fuzzy and vary depending on environment and species groups. A basic but good example of how more numbers creates stability is the old rabbit and fox simulator. You could get variables that had regular cycles, but it was very easy to spiral out of control. Having more things and interdependence would dampen these changes.