INVESTIGADORES
VAZQUEZ Diego P.
artículos
Título:
The dimensionality of ecological networks
Autor/es:
EKLÖF A; JACOB U; KOPP JC; BOSCH; CASTRO-URGAL R; CHACOFF NP; DALSGAARD B; DE SASSI C; GALETTI M; GUIMARÃES P; LOMÁSCOLO SB; MARTÍN-GONZÁLEZ AM; PIZO MA; RADER R; RODRIGO A; TYLIANAKIS J; VÁZQUEZ DP; ALLESINA S
Revista:
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Editorial:
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
Referencias:
Lugar: Londres; Año: 2013 vol. 16 p. 577 - 583
ISSN:
1461-023X
Resumen:
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.