Towards a less spherical cow: Species differences dilute the stabilizing effect of higher-order interactions
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arXiv
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866914073841500160 |
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| author | Duran-Sala, Marc Meloni, Sandro Calleja-Solanas, Violeta |
| author_facet | Duran-Sala, Marc Meloni, Sandro Calleja-Solanas, Violeta |
| contents | Ecological models traditionally explain stability and coexistence through pairwise interactions among species. These interactions can also involve groups of three or more species, higher-order interactions, which recent theory suggests can by themselves stabilize communities. However, ecological communities exhibit both pairwise and higher-order interactions, and how their interplay governs stability and coexistence remains unknown. This work addresses this gap by analyzing a model of competitive communities that incorporates a proportion of pairwise and higher-order interactions. Using empirical data, numerical simulations, and analytical methods, we show that higher-order interactions alone cannot guarantee coexistence. We find that, while a small fraction of higher-order interactions can stabilize dynamics in communities of identical species, this effect disappears under more realistic conditions -such as heterogeneity in birth and death rates, empirically derived rates, or explicit interaction structures. Our results challenge the prevailing view of higher-order interactions as a universal stabilizing mechanism, providing quantitative evidence of the joint importance of both pairwise and higher-order interactions, together with network structure and species parameters, for understanding ecological stability. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_09172 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Towards a less spherical cow: Species differences dilute the stabilizing effect of higher-order interactions Duran-Sala, Marc Meloni, Sandro Calleja-Solanas, Violeta Populations and Evolution Ecological models traditionally explain stability and coexistence through pairwise interactions among species. These interactions can also involve groups of three or more species, higher-order interactions, which recent theory suggests can by themselves stabilize communities. However, ecological communities exhibit both pairwise and higher-order interactions, and how their interplay governs stability and coexistence remains unknown. This work addresses this gap by analyzing a model of competitive communities that incorporates a proportion of pairwise and higher-order interactions. Using empirical data, numerical simulations, and analytical methods, we show that higher-order interactions alone cannot guarantee coexistence. We find that, while a small fraction of higher-order interactions can stabilize dynamics in communities of identical species, this effect disappears under more realistic conditions -such as heterogeneity in birth and death rates, empirically derived rates, or explicit interaction structures. Our results challenge the prevailing view of higher-order interactions as a universal stabilizing mechanism, providing quantitative evidence of the joint importance of both pairwise and higher-order interactions, together with network structure and species parameters, for understanding ecological stability. |
| title | Towards a less spherical cow: Species differences dilute the stabilizing effect of higher-order interactions |
| topic | Populations and Evolution |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09172 |