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Cirtwill AR, Åkesson A, Wootton KL, Eklöf A. Species motif participation provides unique information about species risk of extinction. J Anim Ecol 2024. [PMID: 38556748 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.14081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 04/02/2024]
Abstract
Loss of species in food webs can set in motion a cascade of additional (secondary) extinctions. A species' position in a food web (e.g. its trophic level or number of interactions) is known to affect its ability to persist following disturbance. These simple measures, however, offer only a coarse description of how species fit into their community. One would therefore expect that more detailed structural measures such as participation in three-species motifs (meso-scale structures which provide information on a species' direct and indirect interactions) will also be related to probability of persistence. Disturbances affecting the basal resources have particularly strong effects on the rest of the food web. However, how disturbances branch out and affect consumer persistence depends on the structural pattern of species interactions in several steps. The magnitude, for example, the proportion of basal resources lost, will likely also affect the outcome. Here, we analyse whether a consumer's risk of secondary extinction after the removal of basal resources depends on the consumer's motif participation and how this relationship varies with the severity of disturbance. We show that consumer species which participate more frequently in the direct competition motif and less frequently in the omnivory motif generally have higher probability of persistence following disturbance to basal resources. However, both the strength of the disturbance and the overall network structure (i.e. connectance) affect the strength and direction of relationships between motif participation and persistence. Motif participation therefore captures important trends in species persistence and provides a rich description of species' structural roles in their communities, but must be considered in the context of network structure as a whole and of the specific disturbance applied.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alyssa R Cirtwill
- Spatial Foodweb Ecology Group, Research Centre for Ecological Change, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Anna Åkesson
- Department of Theoretical Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
| | - Kate L Wootton
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
| | - Anna Eklöf
- Department of Theoretical Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
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Gaüzère P, Botella C, Poggiato G, O'Connor L, Di Marco M, Dragonetti C, Maiorano L, Renaud J, Thuiller W. Dissimilarity of vertebrate trophic interactions reveals spatial uniqueness but functional redundancy across Europe. Curr Biol 2023; 33:5263-5271.e3. [PMID: 37992717 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2023] [Revised: 10/24/2023] [Accepted: 10/30/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023]
Abstract
Identifying areas that contain species assemblages not found elsewhere in a region is central to conservation planning.1,2 Species assemblages contain networks of species interactions that underpin species dynamics,3,4 ecosystem processes, and contributions to people.5,6,7 Yet the uniqueness of interaction networks in a regional context has rarely been assessed. Here, we estimated the spatial uniqueness of 10,000 terrestrial vertebrate trophic networks across Europe (1,164 species, 50,408 potential interactions8) based on the amount of similarity between all local networks mapped at a 10 km resolution. Our results revealed more unique networks in the Arctic bioregion, but also in southern Europe and isolated islands. We then contrasted the uniqueness of trophic networks with their vulnerability to human footprint and future climate change and measured their coverage within protected areas. This analysis revealed that unique networks situated in southern Europe were particularly exposed to human footprint and that unique networks in the Arctic might be at risk from future climate change. However, considering interaction networks at the level of trophic groups, rather than species, revealed that the general structure of trophic networks was redundant across the continent, in contrast to species' interactions. We argue that proactive European conservation strategies might gain relevance by turning their eyes toward interaction networks that are both unique and vulnerable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pierre Gaüzère
- University of Grenoble Alpes, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, 38000 Grenoble, France.
| | | | - Giovanni Poggiato
- University of Grenoble Alpes, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Louise O'Connor
- University of Grenoble Alpes, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, 38000 Grenoble, France; Biodiversity, Ecology and Conservation Group, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria
| | - Moreno Di Marco
- Department of Biology and Biotechnologies "Charles Darwin," "Sapienza," University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy
| | - Chiara Dragonetti
- Department of Biology and Biotechnologies "Charles Darwin," "Sapienza," University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy
| | - Luigi Maiorano
- Department of Biology and Biotechnologies "Charles Darwin," "Sapienza," University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy
| | - Julien Renaud
- University of Grenoble Alpes, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Wilfried Thuiller
- University of Grenoble Alpes, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, 38000 Grenoble, France
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Blanchard G, Munoz F. Revisiting extinction debt through the lens of multitrophic networks and meta‐ecosystems. OIKOS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.09435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Grégoire Blanchard
- AMAP, Univ. Montpellier, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD Montpellier France
- AMAP, IRD, Herbier de Nouvelle Calédonie Nouméa Nouvelle Calédonie
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Gawecka KA, Pedraza F, Bascompte J. Effects of habitat destruction on coevolving metacommunities. Ecol Lett 2022; 25:2597-2610. [PMID: 36223432 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2022] [Revised: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 09/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Habitat destruction is a growing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The ecological consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation involve reductions in species abundance and even the extinction of species and their interactions. However, we do not yet understand how habitat loss alters the coevolutionary trajectories of the remaining species or how coevolution, in turn, affects their response to habitat loss. To investigate this, we develop a spatially explicit model which couples metacommunity and coevolutionary dynamics. We show that, by changing the size, composition and structure of local networks, habitat destruction increases the diversity of coevolutionary trajectories of mutualists across the landscape. Conversely, in antagonistic communities, some species increase while others reduce their spatial trait heterogeneity. Furthermore, we show that while coevolution dampens the negative effects of habitat destruction in mutualistic networks, its effects on the persistence of antagonistic communities tend to be smaller and less predictable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Klementyna A Gawecka
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Fernando Pedraza
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Jordi Bascompte
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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