Structural asymmetry in biotic interactions as a tool to understand and predict ecological persistence
Publicated to:Ecology Letters. 26 (10): 1647-1662 - 2023-10-01 26(10), DOI: 10.1111/ele.14291
Authors: Allen-Perkins, A; García-Callejas, D; Bartomeus, I; Godoy, O
Affiliations
Abstract
A universal feature of ecological systems is that species do not interact with others with the same sign and strength. Yet, the consequences of this asymmetry in biotic interactions for the short- and long-term persistence of individual species and entire communities remains unclear. Here, we develop a set of metrics to evaluate how asymmetric interactions among species translate to asymmetries in their individual vulnerability to extinction under changing environmental conditions. These metrics, which solve previous limitations of how to independently quantify the size from the shape of the so-called feasibility domain, provide rigorous advances to understand simultaneously why some species and communities present more opportunities to persist than others. We further demonstrate that our shape-related metrics are useful to predict short-term changes in species' relative abundances during 7 years in a Mediterranean grassland. Our approach is designed to be applied to any ecological system regardless of the number of species and type of interactions. With it, we show that is possible to obtain both mechanistic and predictive information on ecological persistence for individual species and entire communities, paving the way for a stronger integration of theoretical and empirical research.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Ecology Letters due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2023, it was in position 8/197, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Ecology. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 2.15. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)
This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:
- Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 2.09 (source consulted: FECYT Feb 2024)
- Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 8.04 (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-12, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 9
- Scopus: 9
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: New Zealand.
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (ALLEN-PERKINS AVENDAÑO, ALFONSO) .
the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been ALLEN-PERKINS AVENDAÑO, ALFONSO.