Rainfall is the principal extrinsic driver of vertebrate disturbance in most systems.

Evidence

Rainfall (and the runoff that it produces) appears to be the principal extrinsic variable driving all of the biological systems that we have examined. The same conclusion obtains in the grassland and shrub steppe communities of western North America (Wiens, Chapter 10, this volume). The most obvious exceptions to this might be oceans and large lakes, where the buffering capacity of large water volumes may dampen seasonal and year-to-year variation in rainfall. This generality may apply only in regions with extended growth periods in the medium temperature range (a broadly defined biological zone of thermoneutrality). At higher elevations or latitudes, the relative impact of temperature may increase. — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1110

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: is rainfall genuinely dominant only where a long growth season buffers temperature, as the passage qualifies?
• XREF: connects to: Disturbance frameworks must treat all trophic cascades as disturbances — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1031; Severe disturbance plus low resource base can reduce species richness — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2259; A biological disturbance can buffer a population against a physical disturbance — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1028 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Severe disturbance plus low resource base can reduce species richness #expands (0.85) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 2259
• Disturbance frameworks must treat all trophic cascades as disturbances #qualifies (0.80) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1031
• A biological disturbance can buffer a population against a physical disturbance #qualifies (0.80) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1028