Unravelling Darwin's entangled bank: architecture and robustness of mutualistic networks with multiple interaction types.

ABSTRACT: Trying to unravel Darwin's entangled bank further, we describe the architecture of a network involving multiple forms of mutualism (pollination by animals, seed dispersal by birds and plant protection by ants) and evaluate whether this multi-network shows evidence of a structure that promotes robustness. We found that species differed strongly in their contributions to the organization of the multi-interaction network, and that only a few species contributed to the structuring of these patterns. Moreover, we observed that the multi-interaction networks did not enhance community robustness compared with each of the three independent mutualistic networks when analysed across a range of simulated scenarios of species extinction. By simulating the removal of highly interacting species, we obse

SUBMITTER: Dattilo W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5136579 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature