Community stability
Three out of four global change treatments (SNW, NW, W) and CTL communities were stable based on eigenvalue analysis, while SW communities were unstable (Table 2). Out of the stable communities, NW and W communities were more stable, while SNW communities were less stable than CTL, suggesting treatments with lower magnitude shifts in species group abundance are more stable over time.
The SW treatment was the only unstable community, likely due to a lack of self-limitation (intraspecific competition) of the dominant species (Table S2). We can further see this in that the maximum equilibrium abundance of the dominant species is lower in SW versus other global change plots (Fig S9). Thus, the strong rate of increase over the last 15 years suggests that the dominant species has likely overshot its carrying capacity in SW plots and will ultimately to decline again to regain community stability.