Predicting invasion success in complex ecological networks

Romanuk, Tamara N.; Zhou, Yun; Brose, Ulrich; Berlow, Eric L.; Williams, Richard J.; Martinez, Neo D.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0286

Cited by 166 publications

(182 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(195 reference statements)

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“…We found that more connected food webs are more vulnerable to invasions. This contrast with previous theoretical results by Romanuk et al (2009), where the authors found that more connected food webs were more robust to invasions. These opposite results may arise from the relationship between species richness and connectance in both studies.…”

Section: Discussion Complexity and Robustness To Invasionscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…These values were chosen because they fall well within the values of the distribution from which the initial biomasses of species in the communities were taken (see Supplementary Material S2). These were considerably lower that those employed in other studies that have used the same model for population dynamics employed here (Romanuk et al, 2009), in order to account for the fact that invasive species are usually less abundant than those in the native community. This allowed us to investigate the effect of propagule pressure on invasion success.…”

Section: In Silico Invasion Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…This allowed us to have relatively species-rich communities with different levels of complexity-defined here by C. Previous studies looking at several aspects of community dynamics and stability using a similar bioenergetic model, have considered smaller communities, up to 40 species (Brose et al, 2006;Binzer et al, 2011) or 30 species in the case of Romanuk et al (2009).…”

Section: Food Web Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The impacts of invasive species on native communities are however, heterogeneous and not unidirectional, making general predictions of species response and effects too system-dependent and idiosyncratic (Vilà et al, 2011). Although several studies have considered the relationship between community and food web structure and biological invasions (e.g., Elton, 1958;Case, 1990;Pimm, 1991;Romanuk et al, 2009), at present, we lack a more general and predictive framework for understanding the effects of species introductions in complex networks of interacting species. On the other hand, efforts directed toward the latter point have identified several species traits as successful predictors of invasion success.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theoretical explorations within larger communities displaying more realistic food web structures are needed to determine both the role of food web complexity and species traits on invasion success. Recently, Romanuk et al (2009) explored a number of food web and invader properties that predisposed species to successfully invade model communities. Using more realistic food web configurations and population dynamics determined by a bio-energetic model, they found that more complex communities were more robust to invasions, with complexity measured as network connectance (i.e., the fraction of realized links in the web).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Network complexity and species traits mediate the effects of biological invasions on dynamic food webs

et al. 2014

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Biological invasions are a major threat to natural communities worldwide. While several species traits have been identified as important determinants of invasion success, a systematic exploration of the effects of invasions on native communities, and the role of species and community features on community robustness in the face of invasion is lacking. We present a theoretical approximation considering food web structure and species population dynamics to study the effects of invasions on complex food webs. We find that less complex (i.e., less connected) food webs are more resistant to invasions. Simulated invasions promote profound changes in several food web properties and stability measures, such as decreases in modularity and the number of food chains from basal to top species; and a decoupling of community-and population-level temporal variability. Additionally, species traits such as body size and diet breadth are strong determinants of invasion success across several trophic levels, with larger and more generalist species being more successful invaders in general. Our work complements species-centered invasion studies by adding a more holistic and systematic perspective to the study of invasions on species interaction networks.

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Section: Discussion Complexity and Robustness To Invasionscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: In Silico Invasion Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Food Web Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Network complexity and species traits mediate the effects of biological invasions on dynamic food webs

et al. 2014

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References

2012

Metabolic Ecology

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Relative impacts of environmental variation and evolutionary history on the nestedness and modularity of tree–herbivore networks

Robinson

Hauzy

Loeuille

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

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Nestedness and modularity are measures of ecological networks whose causative effects are little understood. We analyzed antagonistic plant–herbivore bipartite networks using common gardens in two contrasting environments comprised of aspen trees with differing evolutionary histories of defence against herbivores. These networks were tightly connected owing to a high level of specialization of arthropod herbivores that spend a large proportion of the life cycle on aspen. The gardens were separated by ten degrees of latitude with resultant differences in abiotic conditions. We evaluated network metrics and reported similar connectance between gardens but greater numbers of links per species in the northern common garden. Interaction matrices revealed clear nestedness, indicating subsetting of the bipartite interactions into specialist divisions, in both the environmental and evolutionary aspen groups, although nestedness values were only significant in the northern garden. Variation in plant vulnerability, measured as the frequency of herbivore specialization in the aspen population, was significantly partitioned by environment (common garden) but not by evolutionary origin of the aspens. Significant values of modularity were observed in all network matrices. Trait-matching indicated that growth traits, leaf morphology, and phenolic metabolites affected modular structure in both the garden and evolutionary groups, whereas extra-floral nectaries had little influence. Further examination of module configuration revealed that plant vulnerability explained considerable variance in web structure. The contrasting conditions between the two gardens resulted in bottom-up effects of the environment, which most strongly influenced the overall network architecture, however, the aspen groups with dissimilar evolutionary history also showed contrasting degrees of nestedness and modularity. Our research therefore shows that, while evolution does affect the structure of aspen–herbivore bipartite networks, the role of environmental variations is a dominant constraint.

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Predicting invasion success in complex ecological networks

Cited by 166 publications

References 67 publications

Network complexity and species traits mediate the effects of biological invasions on dynamic food webs

Network complexity and species traits mediate the effects of biological invasions on dynamic food webs

References

Relative impacts of environmental variation and evolutionary history on the nestedness and modularity of tree–herbivore networks

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