Conservation of species interactions to achieve self‐sustaining ecosystems

Abstract

A desirable goal of nature management is to re‐establish self‐sustaining ecosystems that ensure the persistence of natural habitats and species without requiring active management. Such self‐sustainability relies on functional species interactions; yet, species interactions are often overlooked in the conservation literature, and when designing species‐specific management efforts. Some interactions may not be restored under general management (e.g. land protection), and may require additional specific management interventions. Interventions targeting these specific interactions fall in a gap between general and species‐specific management, effectively bridging community‐ and population‐level approaches to conservation management. We propose that managers should explicitly identify cases where active management of specific interaction partners is required to achieve population self‐sustainability. In addition, they should ensure that general management interventions do not inadvertently conflict with naturally occurring interactions, potentially thwarting conservation targets. Interaction functionality may be restored by relying on native species and by identifying the spatial context in which interactions are most likely to re‐establish, considering distributional range overlap of interaction partners, local variation in individual encounter rate or even spatial variation in the expected success rate (efficiency) of the focal interaction.

Biotic Threats to Cycas micronesica Continue to Expand to Complicate Conservation Decisions

“…Coalitions of native organisms should also guide in defining targeted goals for threatened plant species recovery. Indeed, conservation of native species interactions should be a goal of all restoration plans, not just conserving the species [ 71 ]. For C. micronesica , the native interdependencies that have been disrupted by the recent anthropogenic activities include the host tree, the mutualist pollinator Anatrachyntis , the stem borer A. marianarum , the native mycorrhizae species that colonize the tree’s roots, and the native nitrogen-fixing Nostoc species that colonize the tree’s coralloid roots.…”

Inferred seasonal interaction rewiring of a freshwater stream fish network

“…Moreover, since it is widely recognized that interactions are the architecture of biodiversity (Bascompte and Jordano 2007), the maintenance of these interactions, even those that are seasonal, is a necessity to maintain ecosystem stability. In this regard, the approach we adopted for our analysis could be valuable for conservation as it can be used to hypothesize key biological relationships that must be retained for species to avoid extinction (Heinen et al 2020).…”

Network ecology in dynamic landscapes

“…degree of the nodes or the transience of nodes and links) can offset the handicaps of nodes or of links (e.g. more nodes of lower quality or more links of lower strengths; electronic supplementary material, figure S2) to maintain species and their interactions [72,73]. Specifically, the ratio of nodes to links and feedback effects in these evolving systems need to be accounted for at the element-(node-and link-), subnetwork-and networklevels.…”