How do ecological communities respond to increasing disturbance?

A paper published in PlosOne suggests that as the severity of a disturbance increases, functional groups begin to respond differently.....although the importance of having high functional group diversity to maintaining stability is conserved across all levels of environmental stress.

Romanuk TN, Vogt RJ, Young A, Tuck C, Carscallen MW (2010) Maintenance of Positive Diversity-Stability Relations along a Gradient of Environmental Stress. PLoS ONE 5(4): e10378. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010378