Institute of Integrative Biology, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
Nature. 2017 May 31;546(7656):56-64. doi: 10.1038/nature22898.
The tremendous diversity of species in ecological communities has motivated a century of research into the mechanisms that maintain biodiversity. However, much of this work examines the coexistence of just pairs of competitors. This approach ignores those mechanisms of coexistence that emerge only in diverse competitive networks. Despite the potential for these mechanisms to create conditions under which the loss of one competitor triggers the loss of others, we lack the knowledge needed to judge their importance for coexistence in nature. Progress requires borrowing insight from the study of multitrophic interaction networks, and coupling empirical data to models of competition.
生态群落中物种的巨大多样性促使人们对维持生物多样性的机制进行了一个世纪的研究。然而，这项工作的大部分只是检查了仅仅两种竞争者的共存。这种方法忽略了那些只有在多样化的竞争网络中才会出现的共存机制。尽管这些机制有可能创造出这样的条件，即失去一种竞争者会引发其他竞争者的损失，但我们缺乏判断它们在自然界中共存的重要性所需的知识。要取得进展，需要借鉴多营养层相互作用网络的研究，并将经验数据与竞争模型相结合。
