Bascompte Jordi, Jordano Pedro, Olesen Jens M
Integrative Ecology Group, Estaciòn Biològica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientìficas, Apartado 1056, E-41080 Sevilla, Spain.
Science. 2006 Apr 21;312(5772):431-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1123412.
The mutualistic interactions between plants and their pollinators or seed dispersers have played a major role in the maintenance of Earth's biodiversity. To investigate how coevolutionary interactions are shaped within species-rich communities, we characterized the architecture of an array of quantitative, mutualistic networks spanning a broad geographic range. These coevolutionary networks are highly asymmetric, so that if a plant species depends strongly on an animal species, the animal depends weakly on the plant. By using a simple dynamical model, we showed that asymmetries inherent in coevolutionary networks may enhance long-term coexistence and facilitate biodiversity maintenance.
植物与其传粉者或种子传播者之间的互利共生相互作用在维持地球生物多样性方面发挥了重要作用。为了研究物种丰富的群落中协同进化相互作用是如何形成的，我们对一系列跨越广泛地理范围的定量互利共生网络的结构进行了表征。这些协同进化网络高度不对称，即如果一个植物物种强烈依赖于一个动物物种，那么该动物对该植物的依赖则较弱。通过使用一个简单的动力学模型，我们表明协同进化网络中固有的不对称性可能会增强长期共存并促进生物多样性的维持。
