scholarly journals Multitrophic higher-order interactions modulate species persistence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Buche ◽  
Ignasi Bartomeus ◽  
Oscar Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Species Persistence ◽  
Pairwise Interactions ◽  
Species Pairs ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
Plant Persistence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Plant Pollinator

There is growing recognition that interactions between species pairs are modified in a multispecies context by the density of a third species. However, how these higher-order interactions (HOIs) affect species persistence remains poorly understood. To explore the effect of HOIs steaming from multiple trophic layers on plant persistence, we experimentally built a mutualistic system containing three plants and three pollinators species with two contrasting network structures. For both structures, we first estimated the statistically supported HOIs on plant species, in addition to the pairwise interactions among plants and plant-pollinators. Following a structuralist approach, we then assessed the effects of the supported HOIs on the persistence probability of each of the three competing plant species and their combinations. HOIs produced substantial effects on the strength and sign of per capita interactions between plant species to such an extent that predictions of species persistence differ from a non-HOIs scenario. Changes in network structure due to removing a plant-pollinator link further modulated the species persistence probabilities by reorganizing per capita interaction strengths of both pairwise interactions and HOIs. Our study provides empirical evidence of the joint importance of HOIs and network structure for determining the probability of species to persist within diverse communities.

scholarly journals Experimental evidence of the importance of multitrophic structure for species persistence

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (12) ◽  
pp. e2023872118
Author(s):  
Ignasi Bartomeus ◽  
Serguei Saavedra ◽  
Rudolf P. Rohr ◽  
Oscar Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Trophic Level ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Mathematical Approach ◽  
Species Persistence ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Plant Pollinator

Ecological theory predicts that species interactions embedded in multitrophic networks shape the opportunities for species to persist. However, the lack of experimental support of this prediction has limited our understanding of how species interactions occurring within and across trophic levels simultaneously regulate the maintenance of biodiversity. Here, we integrate a mathematical approach and detailed experiments in plant–pollinator communities to demonstrate the need to jointly account for species interactions within and across trophic levels when estimating the ability of species to persist. Within the plant trophic level, we show that the persistence probability of plant species increases when introducing the effects of plant–pollinator interactions. Across trophic levels, we show that the persistence probabilities of both plants and pollinators exhibit idiosyncratic changes when experimentally manipulating the multitrophic structure. Importantly, these idiosyncratic effects are not recovered by traditional simulations. Our work provides tractable experimental and theoretical platforms upon which it is possible to investigate the multitrophic factors affecting species persistence in ecological communities.

scholarly journals The effect of alien species on plant-pollinator network structure across a gradient of plant species invasion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Parra-Tabla ◽  
Diego Angulo-Pérez ◽  
Cristopher Albor ◽  
María José Campos-Navarrete ◽  
Juan Tun-Garrido ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alien Species ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Species Level ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Alien Plant Species ◽  
Floral Trait ◽  
Alien Plant ◽  
Trait Similarity ◽  
Plant Pollinator

AbstractThe interactions between pairs of native and alien plants via shared use of pollinators have been widely studied. Studies of invasive species effects at the community level on the other hand are still scarce. Few community level studies, however, have considered how differences in the intensity of invasion, and degree of floral trait similarity between native and invasive species, can mediated effects on native plant-pollinator communities. Here, we evaluated the effect of alien species on overall plant-pollinator network structure, and species-level network parameters, across nine coastal communities distributed along 205 km at Yucatán, México that vary in alien species richness and flower abundance. We further assessed the effect of alien plant species on plant-pollinator network structure and robustness via computational simulation of native and invasive plant extinction scenarios. We did not find significant differences between native and alien species in functional floral phenotypes, the visitation rate and species composition of the pollinator community. Variation in the proportion of alien plant species and flower abundance across sites did not affect plant-pollinator networks structure. Species-level network parameters (i.e., normalized degree and nestedness contribution) did not differ between native and alien species. Furthermore, our simulation analyses revealed that alien species are functionally equivalent to native species and contribute equally to network structure and robustness. Overall, our results suggest that alien species are well integrated into native coastal plant-pollinator networks which may be facilitated by high levels of floral trait similarity and pollinator use overlap. As a result, alien species may play a similar role than that of natives in the structure and stability of native plant and pollinator communities in the studied coastal sand dune ecosystem.

scholarly journals Higher-order temporal network effects through triplet evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Yao ◽  
Bingsheng Chen ◽  
Tim S. Evans ◽  
Kim Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Link Prediction ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Prediction Algorithm ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Temporal Networks ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Order Interaction ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Pairwise Interactions

AbstractWe study the evolution of networks through ‘triplets’—three-node graphlets. We develop a method to compute a transition matrix to describe the evolution of triplets in temporal networks. To identify the importance of higher-order interactions in the evolution of networks, we compare both artificial and real-world data to a model based on pairwise interactions only. The significant differences between the computed matrix and the calculated matrix from the fitted parameters demonstrate that non-pairwise interactions exist for various real-world systems in space and time, such as our data sets. Furthermore, this also reveals that different patterns of higher-order interaction are involved in different real-world situations. To test our approach, we then use these transition matrices as the basis of a link prediction algorithm. We investigate our algorithm’s performance on four temporal networks, comparing our approach against ten other link prediction methods. Our results show that higher-order interactions in both space and time play a crucial role in the evolution of networks as we find our method, along with two other methods based on non-local interactions, give the best overall performance. The results also confirm the concept that the higher-order interaction patterns, i.e., triplet dynamics, can help us understand and predict the evolution of different real-world systems.

scholarly journals Insect Visitation to Wildflowers in the Endangered Garry Oak, Quercus garryana, Ecosystem of British Columbia

2005 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 245 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. L. Parachnowitsch ◽  
E. Elle
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Quercus Garryana ◽  
Chi Squared ◽  
Insect Visitation ◽  
Introduced Honeybee ◽  
Pollinating Insects ◽  
Basic Biology ◽  
Oak Ecosystem ◽  
Plant Pollinator

The Garry Oak Ecosystem (GOE) is a fragmented and endangered ecosystem in Canada, and is currently the focus of conservation and restoration efforts in British Columbia. However, little is known about the basic biology of GOE forbs, or their relationships with pollinating insects. We monitored wildflowers and their insect visitors in 25 quadrats within a 25 × 25 metre plot, located in a fragment of the GOE near Duncan, British Columbia, for six weeks (the majority of the flowering period). Overall, 21 native and non-native forb species flowered in our quadrats during the survey, and we observed an additional six forb species flowering outside of our quadrats. Eight forbs were visited within quadrats by a total of 13 insect taxa, identified to morphospecies. Visits by eight additional morphospecies were observed outside of the quadrats. In general, visitation was low; however, most insect morphospecies were observed visiting more than one plant species, and most plant species were visited by more than one insect morphospecies, suggesting that pollination may be generalised in this community. A Chi-squared analysis indicated that insect visitation was not proportional to the relative abundance of forbs, with higher than expected visitation to Common camas (Camassia quamash), and no observed visits to 11 species, most with very small (putatively unattractive) flowers. The most frequent insect visitor was the introduced Honeybee, Apis mellifera, followed by native mason bees (Osmia spp.) and mining bees (Andrena spp.). Our observations provide baseline data for future, detailed studies that should investigate the importance of plant-pollinator mutualisms for sustainability of populations and communities in this rare ecosystem.

scholarly journals Long-legged bees make adaptive leaps: linking adaptation to coevolution in a plant–pollinator network

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1862) ◽  
pp. 20171707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Pauw ◽  
Belinda Kahnt ◽  
Michael Kuhlmann ◽  
Denis Michez ◽  
Graham A. Montgomery ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Evolutionary Divergence ◽  
Large Network ◽  
Independent Contrasts ◽  
Leg Length ◽  
Phylogenetically Independent Contrasts ◽  
Explained Variance ◽  
Spur Length ◽  
Plant Pollinator ◽  
Selective Environment

Adaptation is evolution in response to natural selection. Hence, an adaptation is expected to originate simultaneously with the acquisition of a particular selective environment. Here we test whether long legs evolve in oil-collecting Rediviva bees when they come under selection by long-spurred, oil-secreting flowers. To quantify the selective environment, we drew a large network of the interactions between Rediviva species and oil-secreting plant species. The selective environment of each bee species was summarized as the average spur length of the interacting plant species weighted by interaction frequency. Using phylogenetically independent contrasts, we calculated divergence in selective environment and evolutionary divergence in leg length between sister species (and sister clades) of Rediviva . We found that change in the selective environment explained 80% of evolutionary change in leg length, with change in body size contributing an additional 6% of uniquely explained variance. The result is one of four proposed steps in testing for plant–pollinator coevolution.

scholarly journals In search for key biogeochemical factors affecting plant species persistence in heathland and acidic grasslands: a comparison of common and rare species

2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 680-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kleijn ◽  
Renée M. Bekker ◽  
Roland Bobbink ◽  
Maaike C. C. De Graaf ◽  
Jan G. M. Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Rare Species ◽  
Species Persistence ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Biogeochemical Factors

Complex Autocatalysis in Simple Chemistries

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Virgo ◽  
Takashi Ikegami ◽  
Simon McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Network Structure ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Origins Of Life ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Nonlinear Phenomena ◽  
Direct Reaction ◽  
Form Complex ◽  
First Order ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Catalytic Effects

Life on Earth must originally have arisen from abiotic chemistry. Since the details of this chemistry are unknown, we wish to understand, in general, which types of chemistry can lead to complex, lifelike behavior. Here we show that even very simple chemistries in the thermodynamically reversible regime can self-organize to form complex autocatalytic cycles, with the catalytic effects emerging from the network structure. We demonstrate this with a very simple but thermodynamically reasonable artificial chemistry model. By suppressing the direct reaction from reactants to products, we obtain the simplest kind of autocatalytic cycle, resulting in exponential growth. When these simple first-order cycles are prevented from forming, the system achieves superexponential growth through more complex, higher-order autocatalytic cycles. This leads to nonlinear phenomena such as oscillations and bistability, the latter of which is of particular interest regarding the origins of life.

scholarly journals Reconstruction of plant–pollinator networks from observational data

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Gabriel Young ◽  
Fernanda S. Valdovinos ◽  
M. E. J. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Observational Data ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Rare Species ◽  
Statistical Technique ◽  
Ecological Networks ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Statistical Errors ◽  
Plant Pollinator

Empirical measurements of ecological networks such as food webs and mutualistic networks are often rich in structure but also noisy and error-prone, particularly for rare species for which observations are sparse. Focusing on the case of plant–pollinator networks, we here describe a Bayesian statistical technique that allows us to make accurate estimates of network structure and ecological metrics from such noisy observational data. Our method yields not only estimates of these quantities, but also estimates of their statistical errors, paving the way for principled statistical analyses of ecological variables and outcomes. We demonstrate the use of the method with an application to previously published data on plant–pollinator networks in the Seychelles archipelago, calculating estimates of network structure, network nestedness, and other characteristics.

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