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Valdovinos FS, Bodini A, Jordán F. Connected interactions: enriching food web research by spatial and social interactions. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20230163. [PMID: 39034705 PMCID: PMC11293845 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0163] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2024] [Accepted: 06/11/2024] [Indexed: 07/23/2024] Open
Abstract
This theme issue features 18 papers exploring ecological interactions, encompassing metabolic, social, and spatial connections alongside traditional trophic networks. This integration enriches food web research, offering insights into ecological dynamics. By examining links across organisms, populations, and ecosystems, a hierarchical approach emerges, connecting horizontal effects within organizational levels vertically across biological organization levels. The inclusion of interactions involving humans is a key focus, highlighting the need for their integration into ecology given the complex interactions between human activities and ecological systems in the Anthropocene. The comprehensive exploration in this theme issue sheds light on the interconnectedness of ecological systems and the importance of considering diverse interactions in understanding ecosystem dynamics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Connected interactions: enriching food web research by spatial and social interactions'.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Antonio Bodini
- Department of Chemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Ferenc Jordán
- Department of Chemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
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Dritz S, Nelson RA, Valdovinos FS. The role of intra-guild indirect interactions in assembling plant-pollinator networks. Nat Commun 2023; 14:5797. [PMID: 37723167 PMCID: PMC10507117 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41508-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/06/2023] [Indexed: 09/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Understanding the assembly of plant-pollinator communities has become critical to their conservation given the rise of species invasions, extirpations, and species' range shifts. Over the course of assembly, colonizer establishment produces core interaction patterns, called motifs, which shape the trajectory of assembling network structure. Dynamic assembly models can advance our understanding of this process by linking the transient dynamics of colonizer establishment to long-term network development. In this study, we investigate the role of intra-guild indirect interactions and adaptive foraging in shaping the structure of assembling plant-pollinator networks by developing: 1) an assembly model that includes population dynamics and adaptive foraging, and 2) a motif analysis tracking the intra-guild indirect interactions of colonizing species throughout their establishment. We find that while colonizers leverage indirect competition for shared mutualistic resources to establish, adaptive foraging maintains the persistence of inferior competitors. This produces core motifs in which specialist and generalist species coexist on shared mutualistic resources which leads to the emergence of nested networks. Further, the persistence of specialists develops richer and less connected networks which is consistent with empirical data. Our work contributes new understanding and methods to study the effects of species' intra-guild indirect interactions on community assembly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabine Dritz
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, 350 East Quad, Davis, CA, 945616, USA.
| | - Rebecca A Nelson
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, 350 East Quad, Davis, CA, 945616, USA
| | - Fernanda S Valdovinos
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, 350 East Quad, Davis, CA, 945616, USA.
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Song C, Simmons BI, Fortin MJ, Gonzalez A, Kaiser-Bunbury CN, Saavedra S. Rapid monitoring of ecological persistence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2211288120. [PMID: 37155860 PMCID: PMC10194002 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2211288120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Effective conservation of ecological communities requires accurate and up-to-date information about whether species are persisting or declining to extinction. The persistence of an ecological community is supported by its underlying network of species interactions. While the persistence of the network supporting the whole community is the most relevant scale for conservation, in practice, only small subsets of these networks can be monitored. There is therefore an urgent need to establish links between the small snapshots of data conservationists can collect, and the "big picture" conclusions about ecosystem health demanded by policymakers, scientists, and societies. Here, we show that the persistence of small subnetworks (motifs) in isolation-that is, their persistence when considered separately from the larger network of which they are a part-is a reliable probabilistic indicator of the persistence of the network as a whole. Our methods show that it is easier to detect if an ecological community is not persistent than if it is persistent, allowing for rapid detection of extinction risk in endangered systems. Our results also justify the common practice of predicting ecological persistence from incomplete surveys by simulating the population dynamics of sampled subnetworks. Empirically, we show that our theoretical predictions are supported by data on invaded networks in restored and unrestored areas, even in the presence of environmental variability. Our work suggests that coordinated action to aggregate information from incomplete sampling can provide a means to rapidly assess the persistence of entire ecological networks and the expected success of restoration strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chuliang Song
- Department of Biology, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, McGill University, Montreal, QCH3A 0G4, Canada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ONM5S 3B2, Canada
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Benno I. Simmons
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, PenrynTR10 9FE, United Kingdom
| | - Marie-Josée Fortin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ONM5S 3B2, Canada
| | - Andrew Gonzalez
- Department of Biology, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, McGill University, Montreal, QCH3A 0G4, Canada
| | | | - Serguei Saavedra
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02138
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Valdovinos FS, Dritz S, Marsland R. Transient dynamics in plant–pollinator networks: fewer but higher quality of pollinator visits determines plant invasion success. OIKOS 2023. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09634] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/23/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Sabine Dritz
- Dept of Environmental Science and Policy, Univ. of California, Davis Davis CA USA
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Meng Y, Lai YC, Grebogi C. The fundamental benefits of multiplexity in ecological networks. J R Soc Interface 2022; 19:20220438. [PMID: 36167085 PMCID: PMC9514891 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2022.0438] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2022] [Accepted: 09/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
A tipping point presents perhaps the single most significant threat to an ecological system as it can lead to abrupt species extinction on a massive scale. Climate changes leading to the species decay parameter drifts can drive various ecological systems towards a tipping point. We investigate the tipping-point dynamics in multi-layer ecological networks supported by mutualism. We unveil a natural mechanism by which the occurrence of tipping points can be delayed by multiplexity that broadly describes the diversity of the species abundances, the complexity of the interspecific relationships, and the topology of linkages in ecological networks. For a double-layer system of pollinators and plants, coupling between the network layers occurs when there is dispersal of pollinator species. Multiplexity emerges as the dispersing species establish their presence in the destination layer and have a simultaneous presence in both. We demonstrate that the new mutualistic links induced by the dispersing species with the residence species have fundamental benefits to the well-being of the ecosystem in delaying the tipping point and facilitating species recovery. Articulating and implementing control mechanisms to induce multiplexity can thus help sustain certain types of ecosystems that are in danger of extinction as the result of environmental changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yu Meng
- Institute for Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology, School of Natural and Computing Sciences, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, UK
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Straße 38, Dresden 01187, Germany
- Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Pfotenhauerstraße 108, Dresden 01307, Germany
| | - Ying-Cheng Lai
- School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
- Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - Celso Grebogi
- Institute for Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology, School of Natural and Computing Sciences, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, UK
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Hale KRS, Maes DP, Valdovinos FS. Simple mechanisms of plant reproductive benefits yield different dynamics in pollination and seed dispersal mutualisms. Am Nat 2022; 200:202-216. [DOI: 10.1086/720204] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Simha A, Hoz CPDL, Carley L. Moving beyond the “diversity paradox”: the limitations of competition-based frameworks in understanding species diversity. Am Nat 2022; 200:89-100. [DOI: 10.1086/720002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Hale KRS, Valdovinos FS. Ecological theory of mutualism: Robust patterns of stability and thresholds in two-species population models. Ecol Evol 2021; 11:17651-17671. [PMID: 35003630 PMCID: PMC8717353 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8453] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 11/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Mutualisms are ubiquitous in nature, provide important ecosystem services, and involve many species of interest for conservation. Theoretical progress on the population dynamics of mutualistic interactions, however, comparatively lagged behind that of trophic and competitive interactions, leading to the impression that ecologists still lack a generalized framework to investigate the population dynamics of mutualisms. Yet, over the last 90 years, abundant theoretical work has accumulated, ranging from abstract to detailed. Here, we review and synthesize historical models of two-species mutualisms. We find that population dynamics of mutualisms are qualitatively robust across derivations, including levels of detail, types of benefit, and inspiring systems. Specifically, mutualisms tend to exhibit stable coexistence at high density and destabilizing thresholds at low density. These dynamics emerge when benefits of mutualism saturate, whether due to intrinsic or extrinsic density dependence in intraspecific processes, interspecific processes, or both. We distinguish between thresholds resulting from Allee effects, low partner density, and high partner density, and their mathematical and conceptual causes. Our synthesis suggests that there exists a robust population dynamic theory of mutualism that can make general predictions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kayla R. S. Hale
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of MichiganAnn ArborMichiganUSA
| | - Fernanda S. Valdovinos
- Department of Environmental Science and PolicyUniversity of CaliforniaDavisCaliforniaUSA
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Arnoldi J, Barbier M, Kelly R, Barabás G, Jackson AL. Invasions of ecological communities: Hints of impacts in the invader's growth rate. Methods Ecol Evol 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Ruth Kelly
- Agri‐Food and Biosciences Institute Belfast UK
| | - György Barabás
- Division of Theoretical Biology Department of IFM Linköping University Linköping Sweden
- ELTE‐MTA Theoretical Biology and Evolutionary Ecology Research Group Budapest Hungary
| | - Andrew L. Jackson
- Zoology Department School of Natural Sciences Trinity College Dublin University of Dublin Dublin Ireland
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