Network rewiring conserves the topology of drought-impaired food webs.

ABSTRACT: Extreme climatic events such as drought are increasing in magnitude and frequency, representing one of the biggest threats to freshwaters across the globe. Although drought can cause extensive loss or turnover of biodiversity, food web structure often remains surprisingly unchanged. This topological constancy suggests that ecosystems undergo rewiring of biotic interactions resulting from adaptive species responses, although how compensatory mechanics collectively reorganise food webs are largely unknown. Here, we perform a merging of trophic ecology with an approach from network science (global network alignment, which optimises network comparison and reveals restructuring) to assess the impact of experimental drought on the topology of stream food webs. We found that whilst drought caused

SUBMITTER: Ma A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12644991 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature