Journal ArticleDOI
The dimensionality of ecological networks
Anna Eklöf,Ute Jacob,Jason C. Kopp,Jordi Bosch,Rocío Castro-Urgal,Natacha P. Chacoff,Bo Dalsgaard,Claudio de Sassi,Mauro Galetti,Paulo R. Guimarães,Silvia B. Lomáscolo,Silvia B. Lomáscolo,Ana M. Martín González,Marco Aurélio Pizo,Romina Rader,Anselm Rodrigo,Jason M. Tylianakis,Diego P. Vázquez,Diego P. Vázquez,Stefano Allesina +19 more
TLDR
It is shown that accounting for a few traits dramatically improves the understanding of the structure of ecological networks, and matching traits for resources and consumers, for example, fruit size and bill gape, are the most successful combinations.Abstract:
How many dimensions (trait-axes) are required to predict whether two species interact? This unanswered question originated with the idea of ecological niches, and yet bears relevance today for understanding what determines network structure. Here, we analyse a set of 200 ecological networks, including food webs, antagonistic and mutualistic networks, and find that the number of dimensions needed to completely explain all interactions is small ( < 10), with model selection favouring less than five. Using 18 high-quality webs including several species traits, we identify which traits contribute the most to explaining network structure. We show that accounting for a few traits dramatically improves our understanding of the structure of ecological networks. Matching traits for resources and consumers, for example, fruit size and bill gape, are the most successful combinations. These results link ecologically important species attributes to large-scale community structure.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Intervality and coherence in complex networks
TL;DR: It is argued here that intervality should not be considered the cause but rather a consequence of food-web structure, and that certain topological features thought to be specific of food webs are in fact common to many complex networks.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trophic similarity and coexistence of Carollia perspicillata and Sturnira lilium (Phyllostomidae), two sympatric fruit bats from the Brazilian Atlantic forest
TL;DR: A significant positive correlation between fruit biomass consumption and availability for both bat species was found and showed a significant difference for S. lilium, with a higher value in Solanum.
Posted ContentDOI
Continuous assembly required: perpetual species turnover in two trophic level ecosystems
TL;DR: In this article , the authors investigated a simple two trophic-level community model to show that continuous assembly is driven by the relative niche width of the trophicity levels, and that if predators have a larger niche width than prey, community assembly converges to a stable equilibrium.
References
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Book
Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach
TL;DR: The second edition of this book is unique in that it focuses on methods for making formal statistical inference from all the models in an a priori set (Multi-Model Inference).
Journal ArticleDOI
Toward a metabolic theory of ecology
James H. Brown,James H. Brown,James F. Gillooly,Andrew P. Allen,Van M. Savage,Van M. Savage,Geoffrey B. West,Geoffrey B. West +7 more
TL;DR: This work has developed a quantitative theory for how metabolic rate varies with body size and temperature, and predicts how metabolic theory predicts how this rate controls ecological processes at all levels of organization from individuals to the biosphere.
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Model selection and multimodel inference
TL;DR: The first € price and the £ and $ price are net prices, subject to local VAT, and the €(D) includes 7% for Germany, the€(A) includes 10% for Austria.
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The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution
TL;DR: Picking up where his influential The Coevolutionary Process left off, John N. Thompson synthesizes the state of a rapidly developing science that integrates approaches from evolutionary ecology, population genetics, phylogeography, systematics, evolutionary biochemistry and physiology, and molecular biology.
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Ecological Niches: Linking Classical and Contemporary Approaches
TL;DR: Jonathan M. Chase and Mathew A. Leibold argue that the niche is an ideal tool with which to unify disparate research and theoretical approaches in contemporary ecology and develop a framework for understanding niches that is flexible enough to include a variety of small- and large-scale processes.