Unravelling Darwin's entangled bank: architecture and robustness of mutualistic networks with multiple interaction types

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Title: Unravelling Darwin's entangled bank: architecture and robustness of mutualistic networks with multiple interaction types
Authors: Dáttilo, Wesley | Lara-Rodríguez, Nubia | Jordano, Pedro | Guimarães, Paulo R. | Thompson, John N. | Marquis, Robert J. | Medeiros, Lucas P. | Ortiz-Pulido, Raul | Marcos-García, M. Ángeles | Rico-Gray, Víctor
Research Group/s: Biodiversidad y Biotecnología aplicadas a la Biología de la Conservación
Center, Department or Service: Universidad de Alicante. Departamento de Ciencias Ambientales y Recursos Naturales | Universidad de Alicante. Centro Iberoamericano de la Biodiversidad
Keywords: Coupled networks | Keystone mutualists | Modularity | Nestedness | Structure-stability relationships
Knowledge Area: Zoología
Issue Date: 23-Nov-2016
Publisher: The Royal Society Publishing
Citation: Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2016, 283(1843): 20161564. doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.1564
Abstract: Trying to unravel Darwin's entangled bank further, we describe the architecture of a network involving multiple forms of mutualism (pollination by animals, seed dispersal by birds and plant protection by ants) and evaluate whether this multi-network shows evidence of a structure that promotes robustness. We found that species differed strongly in their contributions to the organization of the multi-interaction network, and that only a few species contributed to the structuring of these patterns. Moreover, we observed that the multi-interaction networks did not enhance community robustness compared with each of the three independent mutualistic networks when analysed across a range of simulated scenarios of species extinction. By simulating the removal of highly interacting species, we observed that, overall, these species enhance network nestedness and robustness, but decrease modularity. We discuss how the organization of interlinked mutualistic networks may be essential for the maintenance of ecological communities, and therefore the long-term ecological and evolutionary dynamics of interactive, species-rich communities. We suggest that conserving these keystone mutualists and their interactions is crucial to the persistence of species-rich mutualistic assemblages, mainly because they support other species and shape the network organization.
Sponsor: Field data on ants were supported by a CONACYT grant (no. 903579). P.R.G. and J.N.T. were supported by FAPESP and NSF, respectively. L.P.M. was supported by FAPESP (2015/12956-7).
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/64252
ISSN: 0962-8452 (Print) | 1471-2954 (Online)
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1564
Language: eng
Type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Rights: © 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society
Peer Review: si
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.1564
Appears in Collections:INV - BBaBC - Artículos de Revistas

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