Diverse communities behave like typical random ecosystems.

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Statistical Physics
• Theoretical Ecology

Background:

• Robert May's 1972 work initiated the study of ecological communities using random matrix theory.
• The applicability of random ecosystem models to real-world ecological communities remains an open question.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend May's random matrix theory approach to generalized consumer-resource models.
• To investigate the conditions under which real ecological communities can be treated as random ecosystems.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing recent advancements in random matrix theory and statistical physics.
• Developing generalized consumer-resource models.
• Conducting numerical simulations across diverse ecological models.

Main Results:

• Introducing modest noise into consumer preferences in diverse ecosystems induces a transition to
• typicality.
• Under typicality, macroscopic ecological properties become indistinguishable from random ecosystems, even with structured resource preferences.
• The findings explain the success of random consumer-resource models in predicting microbial community patterns.

Conclusions:

• Noise in consumer preferences is a key factor driving ecological communities towards statistical randomness.
• This provides a theoretical basis for the effectiveness of random models in explaining observed ecological patterns.
• Scaling bottom-up approaches in synthetic ecology to diverse communities presents significant challenges.