Rohr Rudolf P, Bersier Louis-Félix, Arditi Roger
Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (iEES-Paris), Sorbonne Université, Paris, France.
Ecology. 2025 Mar;106(3):e70064. doi: 10.1002/ecy.70064.
Ecologists have documented many characteristics of natural systems that foster ecosystem persistence, and it might be deduced that such strategies are essential for counteracting the negative effect of complexity on local stability that was suggested by R.M. May in his influential work of the 1970s. However, we show that the loss of local stability does not necessarily imply total ecosystem extinction. A more general criterion of ecosystem viability is the long-term persistence of any number of surviving species-not necessarily all of them. With this approach, we show that persistence increases with complexity, contrary to previous theoretical findings. In particular, positive interactions (mutualistic or prey-to-predator) play a crucial role in creating ecological niches, which sustain biodiversity with increasing complexity.
生态学家已经记录了许多促进生态系统持久性的自然系统特征，由此可以推断，这些策略对于抵消复杂性对局部稳定性的负面影响至关重要，R.M. 梅在其20世纪70年代的开创性工作中曾提出过这种负面影响。然而，我们表明局部稳定性的丧失并不一定意味着整个生态系统的灭绝。生态系统生存能力的一个更普遍标准是任意数量存活物种的长期持久性——不一定是所有物种。通过这种方法，我们表明持久性会随着复杂性的增加而提高，这与之前的理论研究结果相反。特别是，正相互作用（互利共生或猎物与捕食者关系）在创造生态位方面起着关键作用，生态位随着复杂性的增加维持着生物多样性。
