The effect of global change drivers on the persistence of the web of life

Background/Question/Methods

Locally and globally, human activity is altering ecological communities, disrupting species interactions, and causing failures in ecosystem service provision. Different anthropogenic influences alter ecological communities, resulting in changes in ecological interactions that potentially affect species persistence. Thus far, studies have mostly focused on the effects of different global change drivers, such as species invasion, on the extinction of specie in communities and on the phylogenetic component, suggesting that communities tend to have fewer species with smaller phylogenetic diversity. Yet, little is known about how the pruning of the web of life is changing the conditions of species persistence and coexistence. Using published datasets on pollination and seed dispersal interactions, we combine dynamic models of species persistence to network theory to test the effect of global change drivers on species persistence.

Results/Conclusions

Our results emphasize a hidden effect of anthropogenic influences; anthropogenic influences are not only pruning ecological networks, leading not only to smaller and simpler communities, but also to less stable ones. We show that exploring the dynamics of networks of species interactions to different global change drivers is crucial if we are to understand future trajectories of ecological communities and prevent ecosystem collapse.