The dimensionality of ecological networks

• Published in: Ecology letters Vol. 16; no. 5; pp. 577 - 583
• Main Authors: 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
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2013; Blackwell
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Community ecology; Community structure; Ecological networks; Ecology; Ecosystem; Food Chain; Food chains; food web structure; Food webs; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; intervality; Models, Biological; Models, Theoretical; Multifactorial Inheritance; niche space; scaling; species traits; Symbiosis; scaling; Food web; niche space; Trophic structure; species traits; Ecological niche; intervality; food web structure; Ecological networks

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, includi...