Jeremy Fox - Higher order interactions don't matter in species-rich communities скачать в хорошем качестве

Jeremy Fox - Higher order interactions don't matter in species-rich communities

Online theoretical ecology seminar, recorded on November 23, 2021. Abstract: Higher order interactions arise when the per-capita effect of one species on another depends on the density of a third species. For instance, the presence of a predator might cause an herbivore species to forage less, thereby altering the herbivore's effect on the plants it consumes. Many ecologists have worried that higher order interactions make it impossible to predict community dynamics. Here I show they needn't have worried. Here I show that, in sufficiently species-rich communities, ubiquitous higher order interactions cancel one another out. Species achieve equilibrium densities similar to those they would've achieved in the absence of any higher order interactions. Like several other macroecological patterns, cancellation of higher order interactions in species-rich communities is a "statistical attractor".