Species Co-Occurrence and Community Dynamics Analysis

Community dynamics analysis examines how species assemblages form, persist and change across landscapes and through time. At its core, species co-occurrence analysis seeks to detect non-random patterns of species presence and absence that may signal ecological processes such as competition, facilitation, shared habitat preferences or responses to environmental gradients. A suite of statistical tools—from simple similarity coefficients to advanced null-model frameworks—allows researchers to disentangle the roles of biotic interactions and abiotic drivers in structuring biodiversity. Recent advances in high-resolution spatial data, experimental field studies and integrative modelling have refined our understanding of how local processes and large-scale environmental context jointly shape community composition. Insights from this field underpin efforts to predict ecosystem responses to habitat loss, climate change and biological invasions, informing conservation and management strategies worldwide.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Integrative modelling of freshwater fish communities across a temperate latitudinal gradient demonstrated that negative interactions, such as predation and competition, are often secondary to environmental factors in regulating species richness. By analysing data from hundreds of lakes, researchers found that interaction outcomes vary with temperature, nutrient levels and habitat complexity, sometimes producing net positive or neutral effects on community assembly. This work highlights the central role of abiotic context in determining biodiversity patterns and suggests that aquatic communities may be particularly sensitive to global environmental change.

Species Co-Occurrence and Community Dynamics Analysis publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in species co-occurrence and community dynamics analysis across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Species co-occurrence: The non-random pattern in which two or more species are found together in the same sampling unit, indicating potential ecological interactions or shared habitat requirements.

Null model: A randomisation procedure that generates expected community patterns under defined constraints, against which observed data are compared to assess statistical significance.

Presence–absence data: Binary records indicating whether each species is detected (presence) or not detected (absence) in each sampling unit.

Jaccard index: A similarity coefficient for presence–absence data, calculated as the number of joint presences divided by the total number of unique presences across two species or sites.

Z-score standardisation: A statistical method that expresses an observed index value as the number of standard deviations it lies from its mean under a specified null model.

References

1. Context-dependent interactions and the regulation of species richness in freshwater fish. Nature Communications (2018).
2. Measurement and analysis of interspecific spatial associations as a facet of biodiversity. Ecological Monographs (2021).
3. Jaccard/Tanimoto similarity test and estimation methods for biological presence-absence data. BMC Bioinformatics (2019).
4. Z‐scores unite pairwise indices of ecological similarity and association for binary data. Ecosphere (2019).