Publication
Title
Dispersal network heterogeneity promotes species coexistence in hierarchical competitive communities
Author
Abstract
Understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity maintenance is a fundamental issue in ecology. The possibility that species disperse within the landscape along differing paths presents a relatively unexplored mechanism by which diversity could emerge. By embedding a classical metapopulation model within a network framework, we explore how access to different dispersal networks can promote species coexistence. While it is clear that species with the same demography cannot coexist stably on shared dispersal networks, we find that coexistence is possible on unshared networks, as species can surprisingly form self-organised clusters of occupied patches with the most connected patches at the core. Furthermore, a unimodal biodiversity response to an increase in species colonisation rates or average patch connectivity emerges in unshared networks. Increasing network size also increases species richness monotonically, producing characteristic species-area curves. This suggests that, in contrast to previous predictions, many more species can co-occur than the number of limiting resources.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Ecology letters. - Oxford, 1998, currens
Publication
Hoboken : Wiley , 2021
ISSN
1461-023X [print]
1461-0248 [online]
DOI
10.1111/ELE.13619
Volume/pages
24 :1 (2021) , p. 50-59
ISI
000575789200001
Pubmed ID
33029856
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Global Ecosystem Functioning and Interactions with Global Change.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 30.10.2020
Last edited 02.10.2024
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