Coexistence mechanism of ecological specialists and generalists based on a network dimension reduction method

Abstract As an ecological strategy for species coexistence, some species adapt to a wide range of habitats, while others specialize in particular environments. Such ‘generalists’ and ‘specialists’ achieve normal ecological balance through a complex network of interactions between species. However, the role of these interactions in maintaining the coexistence of generalist and specialist species has not been elucidated within a general theoretical framework. Here, we analyze the ecological mechanism for the coexistence of specialist and generalist species in a class of mutualistic and competitive interaction ecosystems based on the network dimension reduction method. We find that ecological specialists and generalists can be identified based on the number of their respective interactions. We also find, using real‐world empirical network simulations, that the removal of ecological generalists can lead to the collapse of local ecosystems, which is rarely observed with the loss of ecological specialists.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Ecology and Evolution

• Publication date

  2024-02-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/ece3.10967PMID 38384818PMCID 10880134
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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