Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica, Automática y Física Aplicada, ETSIDI, Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Ecol Lett. 2023 Oct;26(10):1647-1662. doi: 10.1111/ele.14291. Epub 2023 Jul 29.
A universal feature of ecological systems is that species do not interact with others with the same sign and strength. Yet, the consequences of this asymmetry in biotic interactions for the short- and long-term persistence of individual species and entire communities remains unclear. Here, we develop a set of metrics to evaluate how asymmetric interactions among species translate to asymmetries in their individual vulnerability to extinction under changing environmental conditions. These metrics, which solve previous limitations of how to independently quantify the size from the shape of the so-called feasibility domain, provide rigorous advances to understand simultaneously why some species and communities present more opportunities to persist than others. We further demonstrate that our shape-related metrics are useful to predict short-term changes in species' relative abundances during 7 years in a Mediterranean grassland. Our approach is designed to be applied to any ecological system regardless of the number of species and type of interactions. With it, we show that is possible to obtain both mechanistic and predictive information on ecological persistence for individual species and entire communities, paving the way for a stronger integration of theoretical and empirical research.
生态系统的一个普遍特征是，物种之间不会以相同的符号和强度相互作用。然而，生物相互作用的这种不对称性对单个物种和整个群落的短期和长期持续存在的后果仍不清楚。在这里，我们开发了一组指标来评估物种之间的不对称相互作用如何转化为它们在变化的环境条件下个体灭绝脆弱性的不对称性。这些指标解决了以前如何独立量化所谓可行性域的大小和形状的限制，为理解为什么某些物种和群落比其他物种和群落具有更多的生存机会提供了严格的进展。我们进一步证明，我们的形状相关指标可用于预测地中海草原 7 年内物种相对丰度的短期变化。我们的方法旨在应用于任何生态系统，无论物种数量和相互作用类型如何。通过这种方法，我们表明可以为单个物种和整个群落获得关于生态持久性的机制和预测信息，为理论和经验研究的更紧密结合铺平了道路。
