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Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems

Ecosystems are formed by networks of species and their interactions. Traditional models of such interactions assume a constant interaction strength between a given pair of species. However, there is often significant trait variation among individual organisms even within the same species, causing he...

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Autores principales: Jackson, Zachary, Xue, BingKan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895049/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36732566
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28473-8
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author Jackson, Zachary
Xue, BingKan
author_facet Jackson, Zachary
Xue, BingKan
author_sort Jackson, Zachary
collection PubMed
description Ecosystems are formed by networks of species and their interactions. Traditional models of such interactions assume a constant interaction strength between a given pair of species. However, there is often significant trait variation among individual organisms even within the same species, causing heterogeneity in their interaction strengths with other species. The consequences of such heterogeneous interactions for the ecosystem have not been studied systematically. As a theoretical exploration, we analyze a simple ecosystem with trophic interactions between two predators and a shared prey, which would exhibit competitive exclusion in models with homogeneous interactions. We consider several scenarios where individuals of the prey species differentiate into subpopulations with different interaction strengths. We show that in all these cases, whether the heterogeneity is inherent, reversible, or adaptive, the ecosystem can stabilize at a new equilibrium where all three species coexist. Moreover, the prey population that has heterogeneous interactions with its predators reaches a higher density than it would without heterogeneity, and can even reach a higher density in the presence of two predators than with just one. Our results suggest that heterogeneity may be a naturally selected feature of ecological interactions that have important consequences for the stability and diversity of ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-98950492023-02-04 Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems Jackson, Zachary Xue, BingKan Sci Rep Article Ecosystems are formed by networks of species and their interactions. Traditional models of such interactions assume a constant interaction strength between a given pair of species. However, there is often significant trait variation among individual organisms even within the same species, causing heterogeneity in their interaction strengths with other species. The consequences of such heterogeneous interactions for the ecosystem have not been studied systematically. As a theoretical exploration, we analyze a simple ecosystem with trophic interactions between two predators and a shared prey, which would exhibit competitive exclusion in models with homogeneous interactions. We consider several scenarios where individuals of the prey species differentiate into subpopulations with different interaction strengths. We show that in all these cases, whether the heterogeneity is inherent, reversible, or adaptive, the ecosystem can stabilize at a new equilibrium where all three species coexist. Moreover, the prey population that has heterogeneous interactions with its predators reaches a higher density than it would without heterogeneity, and can even reach a higher density in the presence of two predators than with just one. Our results suggest that heterogeneity may be a naturally selected feature of ecological interactions that have important consequences for the stability and diversity of ecosystems. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9895049/ /pubmed/36732566 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28473-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Jackson, Zachary
Xue, BingKan
Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title_full Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title_fullStr Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title_full_unstemmed Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title_short Heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
title_sort heterogeneity of interaction strengths and its consequences on ecological systems
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9895049/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36732566
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28473-8
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