Assessing mutualistic metacommunity capacity by integrating spatial and interaction networks

Marc Ohlmann, Munoz, François, Massol, François and Wilfried Thuiller

Theoretical Population Biology, 2024, vol. 156, issue C, 22-39

Abstract: We develop a spatially realistic model of mutualistic metacommunities that exploits the joint structure of spatial and interaction networks. Assuming that all species have the same colonisation and extinction parameters, this model exhibits a sharp transition between stable non-null equilibrium states and a global extinction state. This behaviour allows defining a threshold on colonisation/extinction parameters for the long-term metacommunity persistence. This threshold, the ‘metacommunity capacity’, extends the metapopulation capacity concept and can be calculated from the spatial and interaction networks without needing to simulate the whole dynamics. In several applications we illustrate how the joint structure of the spatial and the interaction networks affects metacommunity capacity. It results that a weakly modular spatial network and a power-law degree distribution of the interaction network provide the most favourable configuration for the long-term persistence of a mutualistic metacommunity. Our model that encodes several explicit ecological assumptions should pave the way for a larger exploration of spatially realistic metacommunity models involving multiple interaction types.

Keywords: Network; Mutualism; Metacommunity; Threshold; Theoretical ecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004058092400008X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:156:y:2024:i:c:p:22-39

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2024.01.001

Access Statistics for this article

Theoretical Population Biology is currently edited by Jeremy Van Cleve

More articles in Theoretical Population Biology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().