1 Introduction Understanding mechanisms regulating the stability of natural ecosystems has been a central focus of ecological research for decades (McNaughton 1977; Pimm 1984; Ives and Carpenter 2007; de Bello et al. 2021), in part because of the need to safeguard ecosystem products and services in an era where the Earth is undergoing significant environmental change (Costanza et al. 2014; Isbell et al. 2017; Watson et al. 2019).