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THEORETICAL ECOLOGY

Simplicity from complex interactions

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 1201–1202 (2018)Cite this article

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Several recent theoretical studies develop tools to predict species diversity in large model ecosystems, setting a new benchmark for understanding the mechanism of species coexistence in natural ecosystems.

A major goal in ecology is to understand what maintains species diversity in natural ecosystems. Modern coexistence theory argues that species coexist if and only if they are neither too similar (in terms of resource use) nor too different (in terms of fitness) from each other1. This perspective, while providing useful intuition for explaining species diversity observed in nature, lacks predictive power. As they report in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Serván et al.2 have developed new analytic tools for predicting species coexistence in large communities and have shown that stable communities of any size can be maintained, with particular network structure exerting very little influence on biodiversity.

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Fig. 1: Simplicity and relevance of ecosystem models along a gradient of complexity of species interactions.

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  1. Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Shaopeng Wang

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  1. Shaopeng Wang
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Correspondence to Shaopeng Wang.

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Wang, S. Simplicity from complex interactions. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1201–1202 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0618-z

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