Interaction patterns and diversity in assembled ecological communities

Abstract

The assembly of ecological communities from a pool of species is central to ecology, but the effect of this process on properties of community interaction networks is still largely unknown. Here, we use a systematic analytical framework to describe how assembly from a species pool gives rise to community network properties that differ from those of the pool: Compared to the pool, the community shows a bias towards higher carrying capacities, weaker competitive interactions and stronger beneficial interactions. Moreover, even if interactions between all pool species are completely random, community networks are more structured, with correlations between interspecies interactions, and between interactions and carrying capacities. Nonetheless, we show that these properties are not sufficient to explain the coexistence of all community species, and that it is a simple relation between interactions and species abundances that is responsible for the diversity within a community.