Pubblicazione scientifica

Robustness of rigid and adaptive networks to species loss

FILONE TECNOLOGICO	TEMA
economia circolare e sostenibilità

RIASSUNTO

Controversies in the complexity-stability debate have been attributed to the methodologies used such as topological vs. dynamical approaches or rigid vs. adaptive foraging behaviour of species. Here, we use a bipartite network model that incorporates both topological and population dynamics to investigate the robustness of 60 real ecological networks to the loss of generalist and specialist species. We compare the response in both adaptive and rigid networks. Our results show that the removal of generalists leads to the most secondary extinctions, implying that conservation strategies should aim to protect generalist species in the ecosystem. We also show that adaptive behaviour renders networks vulnerable to species loss at initial stages but enhances long term stability of the system. However, whether adaptive networks are more robust to species loss than rigid ones depends on the structure of the network. Specifically, adaptive networks with modularity < 0.3 are more robust than rigid networks of the same modularity. Interestingly, the more modular a network is, the less robust it is to external perturbations.

DATA

Data di pubblicazione: 07/12/2017

AUTORI

NUWAGABA SAVANNAH
ZHANG FENG
HUI CANG

ENTE DI AFFERENZA

CTR INVASION BIOLOGY DEPT MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES STELLENBOSCH UNIV MATIELAND SOUTH AFRICA
MOE KEY LAB
MATHEMATICAL & PHYSICAL BIOSCIENCES AFRICAN INST MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES MUIZENBERG SOUTH AFRICA
UNIV REY JUAN CARLOS SPAIN

RIVISTA

PLoS ONE, 12(12), e0189086

IMPACT FACTOR

2,870

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