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Agricultural intensification drives changes in hybrid network robustness by modifying network structure
- Source :
- Ecology Letters. 23:359-369
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Within ecological communities, species engage in myriad interaction types, yet empirical examples of hybrid species interaction networks composed of multiple types of interactions are still scarce. A key knowledge gap is understanding how the structure and stability of such hybrid networks are affected by anthropogenic disturbance. Using 15,169 interaction observations, we constructed 16 hybrid herbivore-plant-pollinator networks along an agricultural intensification gradient to explore changes in network structure and robustness to local extinctions. We found that agricultural intensification led to declines in modularity but increases in nestedness and connectance. Notably, network connectance, a structural feature typically thought to increase robustness, caused declines in hybrid network robustness, but the directionality of changes in robustness along the gradient depended on the order of local species extinctions. Our results not only demonstrate the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on hybrid network structure, but they also provide unexpected insights into the structure-stability relationship of hybrid networks.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Computer science
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Hybrid species
Robustness (evolution)
Network structure
Agriculture
Plants
Biota
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Agricultural intensification
Nestedness
Herbivory
Interaction type
Pollination
Biological system
Ecosystem
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14610248 and 1461023X
- Volume :
- 23
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Ecology Letters
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....7fb98926b810b2511552d1489302ec14