Fig. 1
From: Social-ecological alignment and ecological conditions in coral reefs
A coral reef fishery as a multilevel social–ecological network. An illustrative example of the integrative, social–ecological network modeling approach and key configuration of interest. The social network (A) captures key communication relationships between individual fishers. The ecological network (B) captures trophic interactions among target species. In reef fisheries, each fishing gear type catches a diverse and overlapping, but distinct assemblage of species in B. Individual fishers are thus linked to particular fish species (X; social–ecological ties) depending on the type of gear they use (depicted in the nodes in A). All nodes and links are representative of our empirical data. The multilevel structure (A, B, X) captures the dependencies that exist within the system, i.e., how features of social and ecological systems are interrelated both within and across levels. Full multilevel social–ecological networks can be disassembled into smaller building blocks, or key configurations (right), that form the foundation for the larger system structure4,68. Here a form of social–ecological alignment is emphasized, i.e., social–ecological network closure, which captures the tendency for actors tied to the same resource to form cooperative communication ties
