Local and collective transitions in sparsely-interacting ecological communities.

ABSTRACT: Interactions in natural communities can be highly heterogeneous, with any given species interacting appreciably with only some of the others, a situation commonly represented by sparse interaction networks. We study the consequences of sparse competitive interactions, in a theoretical model of a community assembled from a species pool. We find that communities can be in a number of different regimes, depending on the interaction strength. When interactions are strong, the network of coexisting species breaks up into small subgraphs, while for weaker interactions these graphs are larger and more complex, eventually encompassing all species. This process is driven by the emergence of new allowed subgraphs as interaction strength decreases, leading to sharp changes in diversity and other comm

SUBMITTER: Marcus S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9302738 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature