In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2020, vol. 35, no. 5, p. 384–396
Observational and experimental studies have shown that an interaction class between two species (be it mutualistic, competitive, antagonistic, or neutral) may switch to a different class, depending on the biotic and abiotic factors within which species are observed. This complexity arising from the evidence of context-dependencies has underscored a difficulty in establishing a systematic ...
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In: Journal of Ecology, 2020, p. 1365-2745.13349
A major challenge in ecological research is to identify the tolerance of ecological communities to external perturbations. Modern coexistence theory (MCT) has been widely adopted as a framework to investigate the tolerance to perturbations in relative reductions of per capita growth rates, often using metrics that explicitly eliminate the independent role of intrinsic growth rates. More...
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In: Journal of Animal Ecology, 2019, vol. 88, no. 5, p. 808–809
Song, Rohr, and Saavedra (2017) have proposed a methodology to compare network properties across systems with different sizes and constraints, in response to the fact that z‐scores cannot be used for such purposes. Simmons, Hoeppke, and Sutherland (2019) have shown that part of the methodology can be improved. Here, we show that all previous results hold and are strengthened by the new...
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In: Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2018, vol. 450, p. 30–36
The feasibility domain of an ecological community can be described by the set of environmental abiotic and biotic conditions under which all co-occurring and interacting species in a given site and time can have positive abundances. Mathematically, the feasibility domain corresponds to the parameter space compatible with positive (feasible) solutions at equilibrium for all the state variables...
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In: Biological Reviews, 2018, vol. 93, no. 2, p. 785–800
Knowledge of species composition and their interactions, in the form of interaction networks, is required to understand processes shaping their distribution over time and space. As such, comparing ecological networks along environmental gradients represents a promising new research avenue to understand the organization of life. Variation in the position and intensity of links within networks...
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In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2018, vol. 33, no. 4, p. 287–300
The quest for understanding how species interactions modulate diversity has progressed by theoretical and empirical advances following niche and network theories. Yet, niche studies have been limited to describe coexistence within tropic levels despite incorporating information about multi-trophic interactions. Network approaches could address this limitation, but they have ignored the...
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In: Journal of Animal Ecology, 2017, vol. 86, no. 6, p. 1417–1424
Empirical studies have found that the mutualistic interactions forming the structure of plant–pollinator networks are typically more nested than expected by chance alone. Additionally, theoretical studies have shown a positive association between the nested structure of mutualistic networks and community persistence. Yet, it has been shown that some plant–pollinator networks may be more...
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In: Journal of Animal Ecology, 2017, vol. 86, no. 5, p. 1136–1146
Ecological interaction networks constantly reorganize as interspecific interactions change across successional stages and environmental gradients. This reorganization can also be associated with the extent to which species change their preference for types of niches available in their local sites. Despite the pervasiveness of these interaction changes, previous studies have revealed that...
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In: Ecological Monographs, 2017, p. -
Although observations of species-rich communities have long served as a primary motivation for research on the coexistence of competitors, the majority of our empirical and theoretical understanding comes from two-species systems. How much of the coexistence observed in species rich communities results from indirect effects among competitors that only emerge in diverse systems remains poorly...
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In: The American Naturalist, 2016, vol. 188, no. 4, p. 411–422
Understanding the effects of biodiversity on community persistence and productivity is key to managing both natural and production systems. Because rare species face greater danger of extinction, species evenness, a measure of how similar abundances are across species in a community, is seen as a key component of biodiversity. However, previous studies have failed to find a consistent...
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