Spatial diversity patterns are linked to energy availability, but how the diversity-energy relationship changes in space and time is unclear. There are three possible scenarios: (a) equilibrium dynamics, where diversity is always positively related to energy availability in both time and space; (b) out-of-equilibrium dynamics, where diversity is determined by energy availability in equilibrium, but diversity variation lags behind changes in energy availability, leading to a mismatch between temporal and spatial diversity-energy relationships; and (c) disequilibrium dynamics where the equilibrium does not exist or is irrelevant.
We attempt to distinguish these scenarios using spatio-temporal palaeoecological data.