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Local and collective transitions in sparsely-interacting ecological communities.

Stav Marcus¹, Ari M Turner¹, Guy Bunin¹

¹Department of Physics, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

Plos Computational Biology

|July 11, 2022

Summary

Sparse competitive interactions in ecological communities create distinct regimes based on interaction strength. Weaker interactions lead to larger, more complex networks, while stronger interactions fragment the community into smaller subgraphs.

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Theoretical Ecology
Network Theory

Background:

Natural communities exhibit heterogeneous interactions, often modeled as sparse interaction networks.
Understanding community structure is crucial for predicting ecological dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the consequences of sparse competitive interactions in a theoretical community assembly model.
To determine how interaction strength influences community structure and stability.

Main Methods:

A theoretical model of community assembly from a species pool.
Analysis of community structure across varying interaction strengths.

Main Results:

Communities exhibit different regimes based on interaction strength: strong interactions lead to fragmented networks, while weaker interactions result in larger, more complex networks encompassing all species.
Decreasing interaction strength drives the emergence of new allowed subgraphs, causing sharp changes in diversity and community properties.
Two collective transitions occur at weaker interactions: a percolation transition and a transition between unique and multiple alternative equilibria.

Conclusions:

Community structure is determined by allowed subgraphs at a given interaction strength and their arrangement across the community.
Modifying interaction strength alone, without heterogeneity in interactions or species number, can traverse different community regimes.