Basic Principles of Temporal Dynamics      

Ryo et al., 2019

Temporal dynamics are inherently complex.

Concepts and techniques have flourished to understand ecological temporal dynamics in recent years.

A key finding of recent studies is that driver–response relationships are not necessarily constant through time, but rather, that they are conditioned by the recent and historical past.

Basic principles of temporal dynamics need to be summarized to increase the understanding and predictability of complex temporal dynamics in ecology and evolution.

All ecological disciplines consider temporal dynamics, although relevant concepts have been developed almost independently. We here introduce basic principles of temporal dynamics in ecology. We figured out essential features that describe temporal dynamics by finding similarities among about 60 ecological concepts and theories. We found that considering the hierarchically nested structure of complexity in temporal patterns (i.e. hierarchical complexity) can well describe the fundamental nature of temporal dynamics by expressing which patterns are observed at each scale. Across all ecological levels, driver–response relationships can be temporally variant and dependent on both short- and long-term past conditions. The framework can help with designing experiments, improving predictive power of statistics, and enhancing communications among ecological disciplines.

Hierarchical Complexity. The idea deals with driver–response relationships in time-series across three levels of complexity. The levels are hierarchically nested, as single-event (i.e., one driver and one response) is a subset of multiple events that are a part of the trajectory. The key property is that driver–response relationships are not necessarily constant through time, but they can change over time due to recent and historical past experience. Hierarchical complexity can be observed at any scale. Temporal dynamics at each of the levels affect each other.

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