Fig. 4

Temporal diversity indices. a Rank clocks highlighting the reordering in the relative abundance of dominant species in stable, progressing, and fluctuating sites. We selected the species with more than 10% abundance at least one-time point (see Fig. 1c). Vertical black bars show the starting “12 o’clock” position on the rank clock. b Evolution of mean rank shifts (MRS) representing the relative changes in species rank abundances. c Rate of community change calculated as differences in species composition between samples at increasing time intervals. Differences in species composition are characterized by Euclidean distances, calculated on pairwise communities across the entire time series. If the distance between samples does not change as time-lags increase, then the community is stable. If sample distance increases over time, the community is unstable and undergoing directional change. If sample distance decreases over time, then the community is unstable and undergoing convergence27. d Bar-plot of the values of the slopes of the rate community change