Impacts of consumer–resource interaction transitions on persistence and long‐term interaction outcomes of random ecological networks

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of context‐dependent interaction transitions in ecological systems, their impacts on persistence and interaction diversity have scarcely been explored in complex ecological networks. By using multispecies bi‐directional and unidirectional consumer–resource models, representing a continuum of interaction transitions (sign change of interaction outcomes), we investigated the effects of structural interaction transitions on persistence (the fraction of remaining species) and long‐term interaction outcomes in random ecological networks. We found that high interaction strength of exploiting resources generally decreased persistence, and high strength of providing resources increased persistence when the strength of exploiting resources was low in more complex networks; also, the networks with high persistence had a high proportion of mutualistic interactions relative to antagonistic interactions present initially and over the long term. The shifting of interaction strengths shaped the long‐term interaction compositions. Meanwhile, population dynamics, especially species extinction, affected the difference between initial and long‐term interactions. Based on classical consumer–resource theory, these results establish a transitional continuum of interaction outcomes in ecological networks and imply a theoretical association among interaction transition, community persistence and interaction diversity.

Dual species interaction and ecological community stability

“…The effect of dual interactions on the stability of large ecological communities has never been explicitly shown in previous theoretical studies owing to the lack of a systematic exploration of the effects of dual interactions themselves on community stability. A recent theoretical work examined the effects of a consumer-resource dual interaction on community dynamics (Yan & Zhang, 2019). The type of interaction that most contributes to community stability is of specific interest.…”

Local-manifold-distance-based regression: an estimation method for quantifying dynamic biological interactions with empirical time series

“…For example, changes in the sign/magnitude of interaction effects are expected in various relationships, such as competition and mutualism, as well as in predator-prey relationships, implying the prevalence of context-and density-dependent interactions in nature [44,45]. Recent theoretical studies suggest that the density dependence where the interaction effect weakens with the density of interaction recipient stabilizes the community dynamics in harmful and beneficial interaction networks [46][47][48]. Thus, applying the LMDr to the time series of natural multi-species community data may elucidate how density dependence plays a role in the persistence of complex ecosystems.…”

Modeling the continua in the outcomes of biotic interactions

“…Scaling up from pairwise interactions to food webs and interaction networks has been done by extending consumer‐resource models to a multi‐species level (Hale, Valdovinos & Martinez, 2020; Lockwood et al, 1997; Montoya & Solé, 2003; Pimm, 1980; Schneider et al, 2016; Valdovinos et al, 2010; Williams & Martinez, 2000, 2004, Yan & Zhang, 2019). Under this idea, two‐species models are used as building blocks of more complex systems involving many interacting species (Martinez, 2020; Yodzis & Innes, 1992).…”