Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2011;6(11):e27280. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027280. Epub 2011 Nov 2.
Simple models inspired by processes shaping consumer-resource interactions have helped to establish the primary processes underlying the organization of food webs, networks of trophic interactions among species. Because other ecological interactions such as mutualisms between plants and their pollinators and seed dispersers are inherently based in consumer-resource relationships we hypothesize that processes shaping food webs should organize mutualistic relationships as well.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used a likelihood-based model selection approach to compare the performance of food web models and that of a model designed for mutualisms, in reproducing the structure of networks depicting mutualistic relationships. Our results show that these food web models are able to reproduce the structure of most of the mutualistic networks and even the simplest among the food web models, the cascade model, often reproduce overall structural properties of real mutualistic networks.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Based on our results we hypothesize that processes leading to feeding hierarchy, which is a characteristic shared by all food web models, might be a fundamental aspect in the assembly of mutualisms. These findings suggest that similar underlying ecological processes might be important in organizing different types of interactions.
受消费者-资源相互作用过程启发的简单模型，有助于确定形成食物网（物种间营养相互作用网络）的主要过程。因为其他生态相互作用，如植物与其传粉者和种子传播者之间的互利共生，本质上是以消费者-资源关系为基础的，所以我们假设塑造食物网的过程也应该组织互利共生关系。
方法/主要发现：我们使用基于似然的模型选择方法，比较了食物网模型和专门设计用于互利共生的模型在再现描绘互利共生关系的网络结构方面的表现。我们的结果表明，这些食物网模型能够再现大多数互利共生网络的结构，甚至最简单的食物网模型——级联模型，也常常再现真实互利共生网络的整体结构特性。
结论/意义：根据我们的结果，我们假设导致食物链的过程，这是所有食物网模型共有的特征，可能是互利共生组装的一个基本方面。这些发现表明，类似的潜在生态过程可能在组织不同类型的相互作用方面很重要。
