Beyond pairwise mechanisms of species coexistence in complex communities

Jonathan M. Levine (), Jordi Bascompte, Peter B. Adler and Stefano Allesina
Additional contact information
Jonathan M. Levine: Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich
Jordi Bascompte: University of Zurich
Peter B. Adler: Utah State University, Logan
Stefano Allesina: University of Chicago

Nature, 2017, vol. 546, issue 7656, 56-64

Abstract: Abstract The tremendous diversity of species in ecological communities has motivated a century of research into the mechanisms that maintain biodiversity. However, much of this work examines the coexistence of just pairs of competitors. This approach ignores those mechanisms of coexistence that emerge only in diverse competitive networks. Despite the potential for these mechanisms to create conditions under which the loss of one competitor triggers the loss of others, we lack the knowledge needed to judge their importance for coexistence in nature. Progress requires borrowing insight from the study of multitrophic interaction networks, and coupling empirical data to models of competition.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22898 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nat:nature:v:546:y:2017:i:7656:d:10.1038_nature22898

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature22898

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().