figsimR: An R Package for Simulating Fig-Wasp Community Dynamics

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Computational Biology
• Evolutionary Biology

Background:

• Fig-fig wasp mutualisms are vital ecological systems but complex to model for community assembly.
• Existing simulation frameworks often lack the detail to capture multi-trophic interactions and species-specific dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce figsimR, an open-source R package for simulating fig-fig wasp communities.
• To provide a flexible and reproducible tool for investigating community assembly mechanisms in these systems.

Main Methods:

• Developed figsimR, an R package with a high-level function simulate_figwasp_community().
• Implemented an agent-based model simulating individual fig-level interactions and outcomes.
• Included functions for calculating diversity and community summary metrics.
• Utilized a 'mechanism knockout' framework to quantify the contribution of individual processes.

Main Results:

• The package simulates species-specific wasp activity, fig wasp emergence, seed production, and resource use.
• Demonstrated a typical workflow using Ficus racemosa, including parameter setup and metric calculation.
• The 'mechanism knockout' framework revealed mean-variance trade-offs across different ecological mechanisms.

Conclusions:

• figsimR offers a reproducible and extensible tool for ecological research on fig-fig wasp communities.
• The package facilitates the evaluation of how biological mechanisms explain observed community properties.
• It enables adaptation to various Ficus species, advancing community assembly research.