Effect of livestock grazing in the partitions of a semiarid plant–plant spatial signed network

In recent times, network theory has become a useful tool to study the structure of the interactions in ecological communities. However, typically, these approaches focus on a particular kind of interaction while neglecting other possible interactions present in the ecosystem. Here, we present an ecological network for plant communities that consider simultaneously positive and negative interactions, which were derived from the spatial association and segregation between plant species. We employed this network to study the structure and the association strategies in a semiarid plant community of Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, SE Spain, and how they changed in 4 sites that differed in stocking rate. Association strategies were obtained from the partitions of the network, built based on a relaxed structural balance criterion. We found that grazing simplified the structure of the plant community. With increasing stocking rate species with no significant associations became dominant and the number of partitions decreased in the plant community. Independently of stocking rate, many species presented an associative strategy in the plant community because they benefit from the association to certain ‘nurse’ plants. These ‘nurses’ together with species that developed a segregating strategy, intervened in most of the interactions in the community. Ecological networks that combine links with different signs provide a new insight to analyze the structure of natural communities and identify the species which play a central role in them.     

Dynamics of opinion forming in structurally balanced social networks

A structurally balanced social network is a social community that splits into two antagonistic factions (typical example being a two-party political system). The process of opinion forming on such a community is most often highly predictable, with polarized opinions reflecting the bipartition of the network. The aim of this paper is to suggest a class of dynamical systems, called monotone systems, as natural models for the dynamics of opinion forming on structurally balanced social networks. The high predictability of the outcome of a decision process is explained in terms of the order-preserving character of the solutions of this class of dynamical systems. If we represent a social network as a signed graph in which individuals are the nodes and the signs of the edges represent friendly or hostile relationships, then the property of structural balance corresponds to the social community being splittable into two antagonistic factions, each containing only friends.     

Top‐down network analysis characterizes hidden termite–termite interactions

The analysis of ecological networks is generally bottom‐up, where networks are established by observing interactions between individuals. Emergent network properties have been indicated to reflect the dominant mode of interactions in communities that might be mutualistic (e.g., pollination) or antagonistic (e.g., host–parasitoid communities). Many ecological communities, however, comprise species interactions that are difficult to observe directly. Here, we propose that a comparison of the emergent properties from detail‐rich reference communities with known modes of interaction can inform our understanding of detail‐sparse focal communities. With this top‐down approach, we consider patterns of coexistence between termite species that live as guests in mounds built by other host termite species as a case in point. Termite societies are extremely sensitive to perturbations, which precludes determining the nature of their interactions through direct observations. We perform a literature review to construct two networks representing termite mound cohabitation in a Brazilian savanna and in the tropical forest of Cameroon. We contrast the properties of these cohabitation networks with a total of 197 geographically diverse mutualistic plant–pollinator and antagonistic host–parasitoid networks. We analyze network properties for the networks, perform a principal components analysis (PCA), and compute the Mahalanobis distance of the termite networks to the cloud of mutualistic and antagonistic networks to assess the extent to which the termite networks overlap with the properties of the reference networks. Both termite networks overlap more closely with the mutualistic plant–pollinator communities than the antagonistic host–parasitoid communities, although the Brazilian community overlap with mutualistic communities is stronger. The analysis raises the hypothesis that termite–termite cohabitation networks may be overall mutualistic. More broadly, this work provides support for the argument that cryptic communities may be analyzed via comparison to well‐characterized communities.     

基于传统生态智慧的江南水网空间韧性机制及实践启示

传统江南水网空间是一种典型的社会—生态系统,人文社会系统和自然生态系统之间的良性互动对于其韧性构建有着重要的积极作用。基于柯林斯等人提出的压力—冲击动态（PPD）模型,以平江府为典型代表,研究传统江南水网空间如何通过生态系统服务的桥梁搭建水网物质空间与人类社区发展之间的联系,从而厘清社会—生态系统在此过程中如何培育、优化和提升江南水网空间韧性。在此基础上,创新性地从生态系统服务供需关系的角度提出社会—生态韧性构建的生态智慧,并倡导以恢复力、适应力与变革力韧性机制培育为导向的、江南地区构建现代社区实践的若干启示,旨在引导江南水网空间实现具有韧性的社会—生态系统转型发展。     

Comparing the conservatism of ecological interactions in plant–pollinator and plant–herbivore networks

Conservatism in species interaction, meaning that related species tend to interact with similar partners, is an important feature of ecological interactions. Studies at community scale highlight variations in conservatism strength depending on the characteristics of the ecological interaction studied. However, the heterogeneity of datasets and methods used prevent to compare results between mutualistic and antagonistic networks. Here we perform such a comparison by taking plant–insect communities as a study case, with data on plant–herbivore and plant–pollinator networks. Our analysis reveals that plants acting as resources for herbivores exhibit the strongest conservatism in species interaction among the four interacting groups. Conservatism levels are similar for insect pollinators, insect herbivores and plants as interacting partners of pollinators, although insect pollinators tend to have a slightly higher conservatism than the two others. Our results thus clearly support the current view that within antagonistic networks, conservatism is stronger for species as resources than for species as consumer. Although the pattern tends to be opposite for plant–pollinator networks, our results suggest that asymmetry in conservatism is much less pronounced between the pollinators and the plant they interact with. We discuss these differences in conservatism strength in relation with the processes structuring plant–insect communities.     

Plant life history stage and nurse age change the development of ecological networks in an arid ecosystem

Understanding how ecological networks are organised over the course of an organism's lifetime is crucial for predicting the dynamics of interacting populations and communities across temporal scales. However, most studies so far considered only one life history stage at a time, such as adult, when studying networks of interacting species. Therefore, knowledge about how multiple life history stages affect the development and stability of plant–plant association networks is lacking. We measured the understory adult plant community and the soil seed bank across a plant age gradient of the nurse shrub Retama sphaerocarpa in an arid ecosystem in Spain. Using a multilayer network approach, we built adult understory–nurse and seed bank–nurse networks and analysed how network nestedness, species’ role, and species specificity varied between them and with nurse plant age. We found that seed bank and adult understory networks changed depending on nurse plant age in two different ways. With increasing nurse plant age, adult understory networks became significantly more nested than seed bank networks. The nested architecture of seed bank networks was therefore a poor predictor of adult understory network nestedness. The contribution and specificity of species to network nestedness increased with increasing nurse plant age more in the adult understory than in seed bank networks, despite high species turnover. Our data show that life history and ontogeny affect the development of plant–plant association networks. Niche construction and environmental filtering along nurse ontogeny seem pivotal mechanisms structuring adult understory networks while the assembly of seed bank networks seems rather stochastic. We highlight the importance of mature plant communities for maintaining rare species populations and supporting the stability of ecological communities through time.     

Population stability is higher in more diverse annual plant communities

Abstract Theoretical work suggests a paradoxical effect of diversity on the temporal stability of ecological systems: increasing diversity should result in decreased stability of populations while community stability is enhanced. While empirical work indicates that community stability tends to increase with diversity, investigations of the effect of diversity on populations have resulted in few clear patterns. Here, we examine relationships between community diversity and population stability in unmanipulated annual plant communities. We show that, counter to theory, the temporal stability of annual plant populations increases with diversity. In addition, and again counter to theoretical assumptions, mean population size tends to increase with diversity, a pattern most likely due to variation in local productivity. The fact that community diversity, population size and the temporal stability of populations covaried positively suggests that abiotic factors such as productivity may govern population stability to such an extent as to override potential effects of diversity.     

Ecological community integration increases with added trophic complexity

The existence of functional biological organization at the level of multi-species communities has long been contested in ecology and evolutionary biology. I found that adding a trophic level to simulated ecological communities enhanced their ability to compete at the community level, increasing the likelihood of one community forcing all or most species in a second community to extinction. Community-level identity emerged within systems of interacting ecological networks, while competitive ability at the community level was enhanced by intense within-community selection pressure. These results suggest a reassessment of the nature of biological organization above the level of species, indicating that the drive toward biological integration, so prominent throughout the history of life, might extend to multi-species communities.     

The overlapping community structure of structural brain network in young healthy individuals

Community structure is a universal and significant feature of many complex networks in biology, society, and economics. Community structure has also been revealed in human brain structural and functional networks in previous studies. However, communities overlap and share many edges and nodes. Uncovering the overlapping community structure of complex networks remains largely unknown in human brain networks. Here, using regional gray matter volume, we investigated the structural brain network among 90 brain regions (according to a predefined anatomical atlas) in 462 young, healthy individuals. Overlapped nodes between communities were defined by assuming that nodes (brain regions) can belong to more than one community. We demonstrated that 90 brain regions were organized into 5 overlapping communities associated with several well-known brain systems, such as the auditory/language, visuospatial, emotion, decision-making, social, control of action, memory/learning, and visual systems. The overlapped nodes were mostly involved in an inferior-posterior pattern and were primarily related to auditory and visual perception. The overlapped nodes were mainly attributed to brain regions with higher node degrees and nodal efficiency and played a pivotal role in the flow of information through the structural brain network. Our results revealed fuzzy boundaries between communities by identifying overlapped nodes and provided new insights into the understanding of the relationship between the structure and function of the human brain. This study provides the first report of the overlapping community structure of the structural network of the human brain.     

Graph theoretical analysis of the phytosociological structure of plant communities: The theoretical basis

Summary A method employing samples of variable size is assumed and shown to be useful in the detection of unidirectional associations of one species with another, whether caused by direct influence or by coincidence of ecological requirements. The pattern of these associations from a signed digraph (directed graph), the graph theoretical properties of which give insight into the phytosociological structure of the plant community. The properties of transitivity, balance, homogeneity, reachable sets and types of subgraphs are examined.From a thesis submitted to the University of Toronto in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.     

Measurement of the Girth of Coniferous Trees at Braemar in 1894

ABSTRACT

Background: Plant communities are usually characterised by species composition and abundance, but also underlie a multitude of complex interactions that we have only recently started unveiling. Yet, we are still far from understanding ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the network-level organisation of plant diversity, and to what extent these processes are specific to certain spatial scales or environments.

Aims: Understanding the systemic mechanisms of plant–plant network assembly and their consequences for diversity patterns.

Methods: We review recent methods and results of plant–plant networks.

Results: We synthetize how plant–plant networks can help us to: (a) assess how competition and facilitation may balance each other through the network; (b) analyse the role of plant–plant interactions beyond pairwise competition in structuring plant communities, and (c) forecast the ecological implications of complex species dependencies. We discuss pros and cons, assumptions and limitations of different approaches used for inferring plant–plant networks.

Conclusions: We propose novel opportunities for advancing plant ecology by using ecological networks that encompass different ecological levels and spatio-temporal scales, and incorporate more biological information. Embracing networks of interactions among plants can shed new light on mechanisms driving evolution and ecosystem functioning, helping us to mitigate diversity loss.     

Predicting the effect of competition on secondary plant extinctions in plant–pollinator networks

What are the limitations of models that predict the behavior of an ecological community based on a single type of species interaction? Using plant–pollinator network models as an example, we contrast the predicted vulnerability of a community to secondary extinctions under the assumption of purely mutualistic interactions versus mutualistic and competitive interactions. We find that competition among plant species increases the risk of secondary extinctions and extinction cascades. Simulations over a number of different network structures indicate that this effect is stronger in larger networks, more strongly connected networks and networks with higher plant:pollinator ratios. We conclude that efforts to model plant–pollinator communities will systematically over‐estimate community robustness to species loss if plant competition is ignored. However, because the effect of plant competition depends on network architecture, and because characterization of plant competition is work intensive, we suggest that efforts to account for plant competition in plant–pollinator network models should be focused on large, strongly connected networks with high plant:pollinator ratios.     

基于无人机影像的草方格生态恢复区植被空间格局演化研究

理解植物群落组成结构的演化对于阐明荒漠化的过程与驱动机制、制定有效的干旱区生态系统恢复措施具有重要价值。研究干旱区植物群落的空间格局的演化过程有助于深入理解荒漠化和生态恢复的过程与机理。目前大量研究关注于植被退化过程中的群落组成结构变化,而对于生态恢复过程中的植物群落空间格局演化的研究尚不多见。干旱区生态系统中植物通常较为稀疏且个体较小,准确提取植物的分布往往需要分辨率极高的遥感数据。近年来,低空无人机遥感技术的快速发展为精细尺度上植被空间格局的研究提供重要技术支持。利用2 cm空间分辨率的低空无人机遥感数据结合地面群落调查,在精细尺度上研究了宁夏沙坡头草方格生态恢复区内植物群落的空间格局变化。研究结果表明,沙坡头地区草方格生态恢复工程实验区域,相对于未实施生态恢复工程的裸露沙丘区域,植物物种多样性和植被盖度显著提高。恢复工程实施4年后,平均植被盖度增加3倍,物种丰富度增加1倍。在植被恢复过程中,随着植被盖度的增加,植被斑块表现出规模上升、破碎化程度下降、形状复杂化、空间自相关减弱等格局特征变化。这些空间格局特征的变化表明大型植被斑块趋于恢复,整体微环境的改善有利于单独生长的植物个体存活,整体上生态系统退化为裸地的风险降低。利用低空无人机遥感手段,对草方格生态恢复工程的植被恢复过程进行了详细、高分辨率的空间格局调查及分析,结合地面群落调查,从多个方面证明了草方格生态恢复措施的有效性。基于无人机的系统格局连续长期监测有助于深入理解干旱区生态恢复机理,对于科学开展荒漠化生态恢复措施也具有重要价值。     

Pollen limitation,species’ floral traits and pollinator visitation: different relationships in contrasting communities

Failures in the process of pollen transfer among conspecific plants can severely impact female reproductive success. Thus, pollen limitation can cause selection on plant mating systems and floral traits. The relationships between pollen limitation and floral traits might be partly mediated by the quantity and identity of pollinator visits. However, very little is known about the relationship between pollinator visits and pollen limitation. We examined the relationships between pollen limitation and floral traits at the community level to connect them to community ecology processes. We used 48 plant species from two contrasting communities: one species‐rich lowland community and one species‐poor alpine community. In addition, we calculated visitation rates and ecological pollination generalization for 38 of the species to examine the relationship between pollinator visitation and pollen limitation at the community level. We found low overall levels of pollen limitation that did not differ significantly between the alpine and the lowland community. In both communities, species with evolutionary specialized flowers were more pollen limited than species with unspecialized flowers. Species’ visitation rates and selfing capability were negatively related to pollen limitation in the alpine community, where pollinators are scarcer. However, flower size/number, ecological generalization of plants and flowering onset had greater effects on pollen limitation levels at the lowland community, indicating that the identity of the visitors and plant‐plant competitive interactions are more decisive for plant reproduction in this species‐rich community. There, pollen limitation increased with flower size and flowering onset, and decreased with ecological generalization, but only in species with evolutionary specialized flowers. Our study suggests that selection on plant mating system and floral traits may be idiosyncratic to each particular community and highlights the benefits of conducting community‐level studies for a better understanding of the processes underlying evolutionary responses to pollen limitation.     

尺度与密度:测定不同尺度下的种群密度

群落中的种群密度由于空间尺度的变化而存在着一定差异,那么,某一种群的密度随着空间尺度的变化会发生怎样的变化?抑或某一物种相对于另一物种而言,随着空间尺度的变化其密度会怎样变化?这是与尺度有关的种群密度问题,当属生态学的基本问题.该文提出这样的问题,并把不同尺度下的种群密度称之为尺度密度(scale density).O-Ring函数的实质是计算不同尺度下的种群密度.因此,在研究实例中,应用O-Ring函数计算了典型草原处于不同恢复阶段的羊草(Leymuschinensis)种群、米氏冰草(Agropyron michnoi)种群,以及米氏冰草种群相对于羊草种群在不同尺度下的种群密度,结果发现:羊草和米氏冰草2个种群的尺度密度,在小尺度范围内严重退化群落均高于恢复演替群落,这一结果验证了“胁迫梯度假说”,同时表明该结果是放牧胁迫下正相互作用所致;通过比较羊草种群与米氏冰草相对于羊草的尺度密度发现,在严重退化的群落中,羊草与米氏冰草的种间关联为负联结,这种负联结是由正相互作用引起的,而在恢复8年和恢复21年群落中,二者之间是正联结,当为竞争所致.该实例说明分析种群密度随尺度变化的规律对于深入认识生态学问题可能会有很大帮助.     

植物间正相互作用对种群动态和群落结构的影响:基于个体模型的研究进展

植物间的相互作用对种群动态和群落结构有着重要的影响。大量的野外实验已经揭示了正相互作用(互利)在群落中的普遍存在及其重要性。为了弥补野外实验方法的不足, 模型方法被越来越多地应用于正相互作用及其生态学效应的研究中。该文基于个体模型研究, 探讨了植物间正相互作用对种群动态和群落结构的影响。介绍了植物间正相互作用的定义和发生机制、植物间相互作用与环境梯度的关系。正相互作用是指发生在相邻的植物个体之间, 至少对其中一个个体有益的相互作用。植物通过直接(生境改善或资源富集)或间接(协同防御等)作用使局部环境有利于邻体而发生正相互作用。胁迫梯度假说认为互利的强度或重要性随着环境胁迫度的增加而增加, 但是越来越多的经验研究认为胁迫梯度假说需要改进。以网格模型和影响域模型为例, 介绍了基于个体的植物间相互作用模型方法。基于个体模型, 对近年来国内外正相互作用对种群时间动态(如生物量-密度关系)、空间分布格局和群落结构(如群落生物量-物种丰富度关系)影响的研究进行了总结。指出未来的研究应集中在对正相互作用概念和机制的理解, 新的模型, 新的种群、群落, 甚至生态系统问题, 以及在全球变化背景下进行相关的研究。     

Patch occupancy of North American mammals: is patchiness in the eye of the beholder?

Aim Intraspecific variation in patch occupancy often is related to physical features of a landscape, such as the amount and distribution of habitat. However, communities occupying patchy environments typically exhibit non‐random distributions in which local assemblages of species‐poor patches are nested subsets of assemblages occupying more species‐rich patches. Nestedness of local communities implies interspecific differences in sensitivity to patchiness. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain interspecific variation in responses to patchiness within a community, including differences in (1) colonization ability, (2) extinction proneness, (3) tolerance to disturbance, (4) sociality and (5) level of adaptation to prevailing environmental conditions. We used data on North American mammals to compare the performance of these ‘ecological’ hypotheses and the ‘physical landscape’ hypothesis. We then compared the best of these models against models that scaled landscape structure to ecologically relevant attributes of individual species. Location North America. Methods We analysed data on prevalence (i.e. proportion of patches occupied in a network of patches) and occupancy for 137 species of non‐volant mammals and twenty networks consisting of four to seventy‐five patches. Insular and terrestrial networks exhibited significantly different mean levels of prevalence and occupancy and thus were analysed separately. Indicator variables at ordinal and family levels were included in models to correct for effects caused by phylogeny. Akaike's information criterion was used in conjunction with ordinary least squares and logistic regression to compare hypotheses. Results A patch network's physical structure, indexed using patch area and isolation, received the greatest support among models predicting the prevalence of species on insular networks. Niche breadth (diet and habitat) received the greatest support for predicting prevalence of species occupying terrestrial networks. For both insular and terrestrial systems, physical features (patch area and isolation) received greater support than any of the ecological hypotheses for predicting species occupancy of individual patches. For terrestrial systems, scaling patch area by its suitability to a focal species and by individual area requirements of the species, and scaling patch isolation by species‐specific dispersal ability and niche breadth, resulted in models of patch occupancy that were superior to models relying solely on physical landscape features. For all selected models, unexplained levels of variation were high. Main conclusions Stochasticity dominated the systems we studied, indicating that random events are probably quite important in shaping local communities. With respect to deterministic factors, our results suggest that forces affecting species prevalence and occupancy may differ between insular and terrestrial systems. Physical features of insular systems appeared to swamp ecological differences among species in determining prevalence and occupancy, whereas species with broad niches were disproportionately represented in terrestrial networks. We hypothesize that differential extinction over long time periods in highly variable networks has driven nestedness of mammalian communities on islands, whereas differential colonization over shorter time‐scales in more homogeneous networks probably governed the local structure of terrestrial communities. Our results also demonstrate that integration of a species' ecological traits with physical features of a patch network is superior to reliance on either factor separately when attempting to predict the species' probability of patch occupancy in terrestrial systems.     

Between‐year changes in community composition shape species’ roles in an Arctic plant–pollinator network

Inter‐annual turnover in community composition can affect the richness and functioning of ecological communities. If incoming and outgoing species do not interact with the same partners, ecological functions such as pollination may be disrupted. Here, we explore the extent to which turnover affects species’ roles – as defined based on their participation in different motifs positions – in a series of temporally replicated plant–pollinator networks from high‐Arctic Zackenberg, Greenland. We observed substantial turnover in the plant and pollinator assemblages, combined with significant variation in species’ roles between networks. Variation in the roles of plants and pollinators tended to increase with the amount of community turnover, although a negative interaction between turnover in the plant and pollinator assemblages complicated this trend for the roles of pollinators. This suggests that increasing turnover in the future will result in changes to the roles of plants and likely those of pollinators. These changing roles may in turn affect the functioning or stability of this pollination network.