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
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Journal ArticleDOI
Predator traits determine food-web architecture across ecosystems
Ulrich Brose,Phillippe Archambault,Andrew D. Barnes,Andrew D. Barnes,Louis-Félix Bersier,Thomas Boy,João Canning-Clode,João Canning-Clode,Erminia Conti,Marta Dias,Christoph Digel,Awantha Dissanayake,Awantha Dissanayake,Augusto A. V. Flores,Katarina E. Fussmann,Benoit Gauzens,Clare Gray,Johanna Häussler,Myriam R. Hirt,Ute Jacob,Malte Jochum,Sonia Kéfi,Orla McLaughlin,Muriel M. MacPherson,Ellen Latz,Katrin Layer-Dobra,Pierre Legagneux,Pierre Legagneux,Yuanheng Li,Yuanheng Li,Carolina Madeira,Neo D. Martinez,Vanessa Mendonça,Christian Mulder,Sergio A. Navarrete,Eoin J. O'Gorman,David Ott,José Realino de Paula,Daniel M. Perkins,Denise A. Piechnik,Ivan Pokrovsky,David Raffaelli,Björn C. Rall,Benjamin Rosenbaum,Remo Ryser,Ana C. F. Silva,Esra H. Sohlström,Natalia Sokolova,Murray S. A. Thompson,Ross M. Thompson,Fanny Vermandele,Catarina Vinagre,Shaopeng Wang,Shaopeng Wang,Jori M. Wefer,Richard J. Williams,Evie A. Wieters,Guy Woodward,Alison C. Iles +58 more
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that species traits explain striking patterns in the body-size architecture of natural food webs that underpin the stability and functioning of ecosystems, paving the way for community-level management of the most complex natural ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Functional relationships beyond species richness patterns: trait matching in plant-bird mutualisms across scales
D. Matthias Dehling,Till Töpfer,H. Martin Schaefer,Pedro Jordano,Katrin Böhning-Gaese,Matthias Schleuning +5 more
TL;DR: The close functional relationships between birds and plants on the scale of individual interactions and on the regional scale show that comparisons of functional trait diversities are better suited than correlations of species numbers to reveal the mechanisms behind large-scale diversity patterns of interacting species.
Journal ArticleDOI
The meaning of functional trait composition of food webs for ecosystem functioning
TL;DR: It is revealed that most of the current understanding of the impact of functional trait diversity on food web properties and functioning comes from an over-simplistic representation of network structure with well-defined levels.
Journal ArticleDOI
Species traits and abundances predict metrics of plant–pollinator network structure, but not pairwise interactions
Colin Olito,Jeremy W. Fox +1 more
TL;DR: It is shown that metrics of both qualitative and quantitative network structure are easy to predict, even by models that predict the identity or frequency of species interactions poorly, and that other aspects of species biology not generally considered in network studies play an important role in shaping plant–pollinator visitation network structure at this site.
Journal ArticleDOI
Influences Of Sampling Effort On Detected Patterns And Structuring Processes Of A Neotropical Plant-hummingbird Network
Vizentin-Bugoni,Jeferson,Maruyama,K Pietro,Debastiani,J Vanderlei,Duarte,Dalsgaard,Bo,Sazima,Marlies +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, a plant-hummingbird network with unprecedented sampling effort (2716h of focal observations) from the Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil was used to investigate how sampling effort affects the description of network structure and the relative importance of distinct processes (i.e. species abundances vs. traits) in determining the frequency of pairwise interactions.
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.