Fig. 3: Timeseries of a 72-species ecological network subjected to six treatments. | Nature Communications

Fig. 3: Timeseries of a 72-species ecological network subjected to six treatments.

From: Mutualism increases diversity, stability, and function of multiplex networks that integrate pollinators into food webs

Fig. 3

This example describes a 50-species niche-model food web integrated with a 33-species plant−pollinator network according to the Rewards Only (RO, a−c) and Rewards Plus (RP, d−f) network treatments subjected to traditional Food Web (FW) dynamics (a, d) or multiplex dynamics with Low (b, e) or High (c, f) rewards productivity. Note that 11 plant species in the food web are chosen to represent the 11 plant species in the pollination network. Simulations last 5000 timesteps and are presented on log−log axes. Each line (colored by guild following Fig. 2) is the trajectory of a species’ biomass over time. Species that fall below a biomass of 10–4 continue to extinction (10–6). Resulting persistence is labeled in the upper right corner of each panel. Plants with pollinators are considered extinct when their vegetative biomass (purple) drops below 10–6; their rewards biomass (light purple) is strongly coupled and declines accordingly. The vast majority of species’ biomasses achieve steady-state by 2000 timesteps with nearly all animal extinctions occurring before then, while several low-abundance plants with pollinators continue slow declines well past 2000 timesteps.

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