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Analysis of institutional authors

Capitan, Jose A.Author

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June 9, 2019
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Coexistence of many species in random ecosystems

Publicated to: Nature Ecology & Evolution. 2 (8): 1237-1242 - 2018-08-01 2(8), DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0603-6

Authors:

Serván, CA; Capitán, JA; Grilli, J; Morrison, KE; Allesina, S
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Affiliations

Amer Inst Math, San Jose, CA USA - Author
Northwestern Univ, Northwestern Inst Complex Syst, Evanston, IL 60208 USA - Author
Univ Chicago, Dept Ecol & Evolut, 940 E 57Th St, Chicago, IL 60637 USA - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Dept Appl Math, Madrid, Spain - Author
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Abstract

Rich ecosystems harbour thousands of species interacting in tangled networks encompassing predation, mutualism and competition. Such widespread biodiversity is puzzling, because in ecological models it is exceedingly improbable for large communities to stably coexist. One aspect rarely considered in these models, however, is that coexisting species in natural communities are a selected portion of a much larger pool, which has been pruned by population dynamics. Here we compute the distribution of the number of species that can coexist when we start from a pool of species interacting randomly, and show that even in this case we can observe rich, stable communities. Interestingly, our results show that, once stability conditions are met, network structure has very little influence on the level of biodiversity attained. Our results identify the main drivers responsible for widespread coexistence in natural communities, providing a baseline for determining which structural aspects of empirical communities promote or hinder coexistence.
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Keywords

CommunitiesEcosystemFood websModelsModels, theoreticalNetworkPersistencePopulation dynamicsStability

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution 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, 2018, it was in position 2/165, 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: 3.31. 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 13, 2025)

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: 4.52 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-04, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 87
  • Scopus: 89
  • Europe PMC: 5
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-04:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 230.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 230 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 39.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 2 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 55 (Altmetric).
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United States of America.

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Awards linked to the item

We thank D. Maynard and G. Barabas for comments. C.A.S. and S.A. were supported by NSF-DEB 1148867; J.G. by the Human Frontier Science Program; and J.A.C. by the Spanish Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad project CGL2015-69034-P. A Fulbright Fellowship (programme FMECD-ST-2016, grant number CAS16/00096) allowed J.A.C. to visit the University of Chicago.
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