Robustness to extinction and plasticity derived from mutualistic bipartite ecological networks.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the response of ecological networks to perturbations and disruptive events is needed to anticipate the biodiversity loss and extinction cascades. Here, we study how network plasticity reshapes the topology of mutualistic networks in response to species loss. We analyze more than one hundred empirical mutualistic networks and considered random and targeted removal as mechanisms of species extinction. Network plasticity is modeled as either random rewiring, as the most parsimonious approach, or resource affinity-driven rewiring, as a proxy for encoding the phylogenetic similarity and functional redundancy among species. This redundancy should be positively correlated with the robustness of an ecosystem, as functions can be taken by other species once one of them is extinct. We

SUBMITTER: Sheykhali S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7300072 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature