Geographical variation of multiplex ecological networks in marine intertidal communities

Abstract

Understanding the drivers of geographical variation in species distributions, and the resulting community structure, constitutes one of the grandest challenges in ecology. Geographical patterns of species richness and composition have been relatively well studied. Less is known about how the entire set of trophic and non‐trophic ecological interactions, and the complex networks that they create by gluing species together in complex communities, change across geographical extents. Here, we compiled data of species composition and three types of ecological interactions occurring between species in rocky intertidal communities across a large spatial extent (~970 km of shoreline) of central Chile, and analyzed the geographical variability in these multiplex networks (i.e., comprising several interaction types) of ecological interactions. We calculated nine network summary statistics common across interaction types, and additional network attributes specific to each of the different types of interactions. We then investigated potential environmental drivers of this multivariate network organization. These included variation in sea surface temperature and coastal upwelling, the main drivers of productivity in nearshore waters. Our results suggest that structural properties of multiplex ecological networks are affected by local species richness and modulated by factors influencing productivity and environmental predictability. Our results show that non‐trophic negative interactions are more sensitive to spatially structured temporal environmental variation than feeding relationships, with non‐trophic positive interactions being the least labile to it. We also show that environmental effects are partly mediated through changes in species richness and partly through direct influences on species interactions, probably associated to changes in environmental predictability and to bottom‐up nutrient availability. Our findings highlight the need for a comprehensive picture of ecological interactions and their geographical variability if we are to predict potential effects of environmental changes on ecological communities.

Climate change in the coastal ocean: shifts in pelagic productivity and regionally diverging dynamics of coastal ecosystems

“…While geographical displacements in species distribution are common and have been a primary focus of ecological climate change studies [34,35], the vital population rates that allow species to persist, grow and, in some cases, maintain fisheries, are also expected to be altered as a consequence of climate-induced changes in primary production [43,44] and circulation patterns [2] and have been less documented. Indeed, among the many climate-stresses affecting the global oceans, changes in primary production are probably the most pervasive, potentially imperilling trophic amplification in food webs and threatening food production and global fisheries [44][45][46].…”

Ecological networks of an Antarctic ecosystem: a full description of non-trophic interactions

“…So far, very little is known about how nontrophic interactions are distributed among species or if the amount of these interactions is related with some topological and structural features of the community, even the association between species-level properties and interaction types remains unclear. Including a full description of the species and its relationships in ecological network analyses -like presented here -is of matter importance (Kéfi et al 2012, 2016, Moughi 2016a, 2016b, Lurgi et. al 2020 and provides an insight into the analysis of ecosystems as a whole and not as a group of individual species.…”

Construction and Optimization of an Ecological Network in Zhengzhou Metropolitan Area, China

“…In certain areas, cross-ecosystem research has been carried out on mountains [29,30], urban agglomerations [31,32], watersheds [33,34], provincial areas [35,36], urban areas [37][38][39] and county areas [40,41] on the basis of landscape ecological construction theory centered on human social activities. Ecological planning theories focusing on maximizing multiple ecological values were adopted for research into land and marine planning [42,43], forest landscapes [44,45], ecosystem services change in an oasis [46], evaluation of ecologically sensitive areas [47], river bank buffering areas [48] and urban ecological landscapes [49][50][51].…”