ArticleNature ecology & evolution2018
The architecture of mutualistic networks as an evolutionary spandrel.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- The eco-evolutionary assembly of complex communities with multiple interaction types.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Mutualism provides a basis for biodiversity in eco-evolutionary community assembly.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Structural stability estimated through critical perturbation determines evolutionary persistence in mutualistic model ecosystems.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Structural dynamics of plant-pollinator mutualistic networks.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Temporal origin of nestedness in interaction networks.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Low internal air space in plants with crassulacean acid metabolism may be an anatomical spandrel.Annals of botany · 2023Article
- Host phylogeny shapes viral transmission networks in an island ecosystem.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- The role of intra-guild indirect interactions in assembling plant-pollinator networks.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Composition, structure and robustness of Lichen guilds.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Estimating comparable distances to tipping points across mutualistic systems by scaled recovery rates.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Local and collective transitions in sparsely-interacting ecological communities.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Ecological network complexity scales with area.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- The impact of individual variation on abrupt collapses in mutualistic networks.Ecology letters · 2022Article
- Nestedness-Based Measurement of Evolutionarily Stable Equilibrium of Global Production System.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Generalizing game-changing species across microbial communities.ISME communications · 2021Article
- Measuring nestedness: A comparative study of the performance of different metrics.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Gene Similarity Networks Unveil a Potential Novel Unicellular Group Closely Related to Animals from the Tara Oceans Expedition.Genome biology and evolution · 2020Article
- Evolving complexity: how tinkering shapes cells, software and ecological networks.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Telling ecological networks apart by their structure: An environment-dependent approach.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Coexistence of nestedness and modularity in host-pathogen infection networks.Nature ecology & evolution · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mutualistic networks have been shown to involve complex patterns of interactions among animal and plant species, including a widespread presence of nestedness. The nested structure of these webs seems to be positively correlated with higher diversity and resilience. Moreover, these webs exhibit marked measurable structural patterns, including broad distributions of connectivity, strongly asymmetrical interactions and hierarchical organization. Hierarchical organization is an especially interesting property, since it is positively correlated with biodiversity and network resilience, thus suggesting potential selection processes favouring the observed web organization. However, here we show that all these structural quantitative patterns-and nestedness in particular-can be properly explained by means of a very simple dynamical model of speciation and divergence with no selection-driven coevolution of traits. The agreement between observed and modelled networks suggests that the patterns displayed by real mutualistic webs might actually represent evolutionary spandrels.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.