Structural asymmetry in biotic interactions as a tool to understand and predict ecological persistence

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Theoretical Ecology
• Community Ecology

Background:

• Ecological systems exhibit asymmetric species interactions (varying sign and strength).
• The impact of interaction asymmetry on species and community persistence is not well understood.
• Existing methods struggle to independently quantify the size and shape of the feasibility domain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop novel metrics for assessing how interaction asymmetry influences extinction vulnerability.
• To provide tools for understanding the drivers of species and community persistence.
• To bridge theoretical predictions with empirical observations in ecological systems.

Main Methods:

• Development of a new set of metrics to quantify asymmetry in biotic interactions.
• Evaluation of how these metrics relate to species' extinction vulnerability under environmental change.
• Application of shape-related metrics to predict short-term changes in species relative abundances.

Main Results:

• The new metrics successfully quantify asymmetries in extinction vulnerability.
• Shape-related metrics accurately predict short-term changes in species abundances over 7 years in a Mediterranean grassland.
• The approach is applicable across diverse ecological systems and interaction types.

Conclusions:

• Asymmetric interactions significantly affect ecological persistence.
• The developed metrics offer mechanistic insights and predictive power for ecological stability.
• This framework facilitates the integration of theoretical and empirical ecological research.