A simple model of bipartite cooperation for ecological and organizational networks

@article{Saavedra2009ASM,
  title={A simple model of bipartite cooperation for ecological and organizational networks},
  author={Serguei Saavedra and Felix Reed-Tsochas and Brian Uzzi},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2009},
  volume={457},
  pages={463-466}
}
In theoretical ecology, simple stochastic models that satisfy two basic conditions about the distribution of niche values and feeding ranges have proved successful in reproducing the overall structural properties of real food webs, using species richness and connectance as the only input parameters. Recently, more detailed models have incorporated higher levels of constraint in order to reproduce the actual links observed in real food webs. Here, building on previous stochastic models of… 
View on Nature
kellogg.northwestern.edu
149 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
9
Background Citations
50
Methods Citations
14
Results Citations
4

149 Citations

Do Food Web Models Reproduce the Structure of Mutualistic Networks?

TLDR
It is hypothesized that processes leading to feeding hierarchy, which is a characteristic shared by all food web models, might be a fundamental aspect in the assembly of mutualisms.

Motifs in bipartite ecological networks: uncovering indirect interactions

TLDR
Simulations are used to show how consideration of indirect interactions can highlight differences missed by the current index paradigm that may be ecologically important, and the need to not rely solely on network and species‐level indices for characterising the structure of bipartite ecological networks is underscored.

Emergence of structural and dynamical properties of ecological mutualistic networks

TLDR
This work shows analytically that the abundance of the rarest species is linked directly to the resilience of the community, and provides a unifying framework for studying the emergent structural and dynamical properties of ecological mutualistic networks.

The architecture of mutualistic networks minimizes competition and increases biodiversity

TLDR
It is shown that nestedness reduces effective interspecific competition and enhances the number of coexisting species, and that a nested network will naturally emerge if new species are more likely to enter the community where they have minimal competitive load.

A network model for plant–pollinator community assembly

TLDR
A dynamic synchronous Boolean framework is developed to simulate, with few free parameters, the dynamics of new mutualistic community formation from the regional source pool, and allows for thorough analysis of the dynamical properties of community formation.

A Dynamic Niche Model for the Emergence and Evolution of Mutualistic Network Structures

TLDR
It is demonstrated that mutualism can exhibit either a stabilizing or destabilizing effect on the evolved network, which undergoes a drastic transition with the overall competition level, allowing it to be found in alternative stable structures.

A hybrid behavioural rule of adaptation and drift explains the emergent architecture of antagonistic networks

TLDR
This work incorporates a hybrid behavioural rule of adaptive interaction switching and random drift into a bipartite network model, which could well be the key processes for structure emergence in real ecological networks.

Heterogeneity in ecological mutualistic networks dominantly determines community stability

TLDR
A theoretical method for estimating the dominant eigenvalue of quantitative (or weighted) bipartite networks by extending spectral graph theory and a theoretical prediction that the heterogeneity of node degrees and link weights primarily determines the local stability; on the other hand, nestedness additionally affects it are proposed.

Interspecific competition underlying mutualistic networks

TLDR
A model network in which links are assigned under generalized preferential-selection rules between two groups of nodes is studied to find the sensitive dependence of the resulting connectivity pattern on the model parameters.

Nestedness Maximization in Complex Networks through the Fitness-Complexity Algorithm

TLDR
It is shown that the fitness-complexity algorithm is highly effective in the nestedness maximization task and generates matrices that are more nested than the optimal ones by BINMATNEST for 61.27% of the analyzed mutualistic networks.
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 43 REFERENCES

Invariant properties in coevolutionary networks of plant-animal interactions

TLDR
This work hypothesizes that plant–animal mutualistic networks follow a build-up process similar to complex abiotic nets, based on the preferential attachment of species, and reveals generalized topological patterns characteristic of self-organized complex systems.

QUANTITATIVE PATTERNS IN THE STRUCTURE OF MODEL AND EMPIRICAL FOOD WEBS

TLDR
It is demonstrated that the quantitative unifying patterns that describe the properties of the food-web models considered earlier also describe the majority of the empirical webs considered, and that the empirical distributions of number of prey and number of predators follow universal functional forms that match the analytical predictions.

Simple rules yield complex food webs

TLDR
This model extends the existing ‘cascade model’ and improves its fit ten-fold by constraining species to consume a contiguous sequence of prey in a one-dimensional trophic niche.

Phylogenetic constraints and adaptation explain food-web structure

TLDR
A new model built on the hypothesis that any species' diet is the consequence of phylogenetic constraints and adaptation is proposed, which better reflects the complexity and multidimensionality of most natural systems.

Build-up mechanisms determining the topology of mutualistic networks.

The nested assembly of plant–animal mutualistic networks

TLDR
It is shown that mutualistic networks are highly nested; that is, the more specialist species interact only with proper subsets of those species interacting with the more generalists, which generates highly asymmetrical interactions and organizes the community cohesively around a central core of interactions.

Asymmetries in specialization in ant–plant mutualistic networks

TLDR
Nested patterns in ant–plant networks were very similar to those previously reported for pollination and frugivore systems, indicating that this form of asymmetry in specialization is a common feature of mutualisms between free-living species, but not always present in species-poor systems.

A General Model for Food Web Structure

TLDR
It is shown that the three main models proposed so far fail to fully replicate the empirical data, and a likelihood-based approach is developed for the direct comparison of alternative models based on the full structure of the network.

Non-random coextinctions in phylogenetically structured mutualistic networks

TLDR
This work uses phylogenetic methods to show that the phylogenetic relationships of species predict the number of interactions they exhibit in more than one-third of the networks, and the identity of the species with which they interact in about half of the Networks.

Food-web structure and network theory: The role of connectance and size

TLDR
It is demonstrated that although some food webs have small-world and scale-free structure, most do not if they exceed a relatively low level of connectance, and a continuum of real-world networks including food webs whose ratios of observed to random clustering coefficients increase as a power–law function of network size over 7 orders of magnitude is identified.