Vulnerable species interactions are important for the stability of mutualistic networks

Abstract

Species are central to ecology and conservation. However, it is the interactions between species that generate the functions on which ecosystems and humans depend. Despite the importance of interactions, we lack an understanding of the risk that their loss poses to ecological communities. Here, we quantify risk as a function of the vulnerability (likelihood of loss) and importance (contribution to network stability in terms of species coexistence) of 4330 mutualistic interactions from 41 empirical pollination and seed dispersal networks across six continents. Remarkably, we find that more vulnerable interactions are also more important: the interactions that contribute most to network stability are those that are most likely to be lost. Furthermore, most interactions tend to have more similar vulnerability and importance across networks than expected by chance, suggesting that vulnerability and importance may be intrinsic properties of interactions, rather than only a function of ecological context. These results provide a starting point for prioritising interactions for conservation in species interaction networks and, in areas lacking network data, could allow interaction properties to be inferred from taxonomy alone.