Wang Lin, Wang Ting, Zhang Xiao-Wei, Lin Xiao-Fen, Li Jia, Liao Jin-Bao, Wang Rui-Wu
Ministry of Education's Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China.
School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China.
PLoS Comput Biol. 2025 Jul 9;21(7):e1013245. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013245. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Early ecological theory predicts that complex ecological networks are unstable and are unlikely to persist, despite many empirical studies of such complexity in nature. This inconsistency has fascinated ecologists for decades. To resolve the complexity-stability debate, coupling population dynamics and trait dynamics is considered to be an important way to understand the long-term stability of ecological community assemblages. However, we still do not know how eco-evolutionary feedbacks affect the relationship between complexity and stability in ecologically realistic networks with both antagonistic and mutualistic interactions. Here, we explored an adaptive network model to evaluate how the evolution of foraging preference to determine the relationship between network complexity (i.e., connectance) and stability (i.e., community persistence at steady state) in mutualist-exploiter-predator communities (MEST). Our theoretical results showed: (i) adaptive foraging of the top predator contributes to the stability of mutualism and intermediate intensity of foraging adaptations can lead to chaotic dynamics in a four-species MEST community; (ii) the complexity-stability relationship may show positive monotonic, negative monotonic, peaked and double-peaked patterns in general MEST communities, while the double-peaked pattern is only obtained when both the adaptation intensity and interspecific competition are high. Furthermore, model predictions may be consistent with both the negative monotonic pattern revealed in freshwater communities and the peaked pattern revealed in marine communities. Finally, we infer that foraging adaptations of the top predator may alter positive or/and negative feedback loops (trait-mediated indirect effects) to affect the stability of general MEST communities. Our adaptive network framework may provide an effective way to address the complexity-stability debate in real ecosystems.
早期生态理论预测,尽管对自然界中的这种复杂性已有许多实证研究,但复杂的生态网络是不稳定的,不太可能持续存在。这种不一致性已困扰生态学家数十年。为了解决复杂性与稳定性的争论,将种群动态和性状动态耦合起来被认为是理解生态群落组合长期稳定性的重要途径。然而,我们仍然不知道在具有对抗性和互利性相互作用的生态现实网络中,生态进化反馈如何影响复杂性与稳定性之间的关系。在此,我们探索了一个适应性网络模型,以评估觅食偏好的进化如何决定互利者 - 剥削者 - 捕食者群落(MEST)中网络复杂性(即连通性)与稳定性(即稳态下的群落持久性)之间的关系。我们的理论结果表明:(i)顶级捕食者的适应性觅食有助于互利共生的稳定性,中等强度的觅食适应可导致四物种MEST群落出现混沌动态;(ii)在一般的MEST群落中,复杂性 - 稳定性关系可能呈现正单调、负单调、单峰和双峰模式,而只有当适应强度和种间竞争都很高时才会出现双峰模式。此外,模型预测可能与淡水群落中揭示的负单调模式以及海洋群落中揭示的单峰模式都一致。最后,我们推断顶级捕食者的觅食适应可能会改变正或/和负反馈回路(性状介导的间接效应),从而影响一般MEST群落的稳定性。我们的适应性网络框架可能为解决真实生态系统中的复杂性 - 稳定性争论提供一种有效方法。