The structure and robustness of ecological networks with two interaction types

Until recently, most ecological network analyses investigating the effects of species’ declines and extinctions have focused on a single type of interaction (e.g. feeding). In nature, however, diverse interactions co-occur, each of them forming a layer of a ‘multilayer’ network. Data including information on multiple interaction types has recently started to emerge, giving us the opportunity to have a first glance at possible commonalities in the structure of these networks. We studied the structural features of 44 tripartite ecological networks from the literature, each composed of two layers of interactions (e.g. herbivory and pollination), and investigated their robustness to species losses. Considering two interactions simultaneously, we found that the robustness of the whole community is a combination of the robustness of the two ecological networks composing it. The way in which the layers of interactions are connected to each other affects the interdependence of their robustness. In many networks, this interdependence is low, suggesting that restoration efforts would not automatically propagate through the whole community. Our results highlight the importance of considering multiple interactions simultaneously to better gauge the robustness of ecological communities to species loss and to more reliably identify key species that are important for the persistence of ecological communities.