Networks

Across their geographic ranges, potential symbionts may interact any place they co-occur, or they may interact in only a subset of these sites. As a result, the actual presence of an interaction may be the result of local environmental or ecological contexts.

In nature, local species interaction networks are dynamic, changing in composition and structural properties as new species disperse to the area, existing species become locally extirpated, and as existing links rewire to form new associations or dissolve old ones.

The observed structure of a consumer-resource network consists of only a subset of potential links within that network. The true structure deviates from the metaweb of potential interactions due to stochastic assembly processes, while sampling effort limitations and error mean our observed network likely imperfectly represents this realized structure.

Anthropogenic disturbance and climate change impacts nearly all ecosystems on the planet through a number of mechanisms, one of which may be the altering of mutualistic interactions. Species turnover due to invasion and extinction, mismatches in species phenology, and other factors may fundamentally alter the architecture of mutualistic networks in many systems.