Sistemas Complejos

Asymmetric Coevolutionary Networks; Facilitate Biodiversity Maintenance
Speaker: Dr. Jordi Bascompte
Date: Martes 11 de Noviembre
Time: 14:30
Place: Salón de seminarios, Instituto de Física
Abstract: The mutualistic interactions between plants and their pollinators or seed dispersers have played a major role in the maintenance of Earth's biodiversity. To investigate how coevolutionary interactions are shaped within species-rich communities, we characterized the architecture of an array of quantitative, mutualistic networks spanning a broad geographic range.

These coevolutionary networks are highly asymmetric, so that if a plant species depends strongly on an animal species, the animal depends weakly on the plant. By using a simple dynamical model, we showed that asymmetries inherent in coevolutionary networks may enhance long-term coexistence and facilitate biodiversity maintenance.