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The dimensionality of ecological networks

Open access
Eklöf, Anna, Jacob, Ute, Kopp, Jason, Bosch, Jordi, Castro‐Urgal, Rocío, Chacoff, Natacha P., Dalsgaard, Bo, de Sassi, Claudio, Galetti, Mauro, Guimarães, Paulo R., Lomáscolo, Silvia Beatriz, Martín González, Ana M., Pizo, Marco Aurelio, Rader, Romina, Rodrigo, Anselm, Tylianakis, Jason M., Vázquez, Diego P., Allesina, Stefano·2013·Ecology Letters
DOI 10.1111/ele.12081
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Abstract

How many dimensions (trait‐axes) are required to predict whether two species interact? This unanswered question originated with the idea of ecological niches, and yet bears relevance today for understanding what determines network structure. Here, we analyse a set of 200 ecological networks, including food webs, antagonistic and mutualistic networks, and find that the number of dimensions needed to completely explain all interactions is small ( < 10), with model selection favouring less than five. Using 18 high‐quality webs including several species traits, we identify which traits contribute the most to explaining network structure. We show that accounting for a few traits dramatically improves our understanding of the structure of ecological networks. Matching traits for resources and consumers, for example, fruit size and bill gape, are the most successful combinations. These results link ecologically important species attributes to large‐scale community structure.

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Metadata

Authors
Eklöf, A., Jacob, U., Kopp, J., Bosch, J., Castro‐Urgal, R., Chacoff, N. P., Dalsgaard, B., de Sassi, C., Galetti, M., Guimarães, P. R., Lomáscolo, S. B., Martín González, A. M., Pizo, M. A., Rader, R., Rodrigo, A., Tylianakis, J. M., Vázquez, D. P., & Allesina, S.
Venue
Ecology Letters
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2013-02-26
Volume
16
Issue
5
Pages
577-583
ISSN
  • 1461-023X (ISSN-L)
  • 1461-0248
DOI
10.1111/ele.12081
OpenAlex
W2149644666
Cited by
339
References
1
FWCI
27.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The dimensionality of ecological networks. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/ele.12081
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Eklöf, A., Jacob, U., Kopp, J., Bosch, J., Castro‐Urgal, R., Chacoff, N. P., Dalsgaard, B., de Sassi, C., Galetti, M., Guimarães, P. R., Lomáscolo, S. B., Martín González, A. M., Pizo, M. A., Rader, R., Rodrigo, A., Tylianakis, J. M., Vázquez, D. P., & Allesina, S. (2013). The dimensionality of ecological networks. Ecology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12081

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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.