Controlling complex ecological communities
Identifying interventions that steer communities towards recovery.
A central question in ecology is why some communities recover from disturbance whereas others undergo abrupt collapse and fail to return. Such complex communities such as a plant-pollinator network, or food-webs consist of many species interactions coexisting and each species contributes to overall functioning of the ecosystem. However, one of the central problems in ecology is understanding the behavior and “controlling” of such complex ecosystems consisting of multiple species interacting with each other. Why do we need to control such networks? For example, till date understanding the behavior of such complex ecological systems has proven to be too difficult. Thus, this research theme deals with understanding the behavior of complex ecological systems: what ecological, environmental, and species-specific factors control the behavior of such complex ecological systems? How do we manage and create a standardised protocol that will enable us to steer a complex ecosystem towards a desired state, for example higher richness, higher biomass state, or higher functional diversity state?
This research is associated with developing theory to understand the behavior of complex ecological systems and finally developing a standardized protocol that will enable us to “control” such complex ecological systems in theory, and then testing those theories in field or small-scale experiments. This research theme deals with developing theory to identify when ecological communities are close to collapse, which structural or evolutionary properties buffer them against perturbation, and what kind of interventions might be required to control such networks.
Selected References
Two of our work on similar “control” of ecological networks are (Patnaik & Baruah, 2025), (Baruah & Wittmann, 2024).
References
2025
Predicting recoverability of collapsed food webs through perturbation and dimension reduction
Theoretical Ecology · 2025 · 18: 10
Abstract
Biodiversity collapse, driven by escalating environmental changes, poses significant threats to ecosystem stability and the provision of essential ecosystem services. Understanding the recoverability of collapsed food webs thus is crucial for devising effective conservation strategies. This study delves into the theoretical exploration of the recoverability of food webs from a collapsed state. Through simple tools like dimension reduction, propagation of species-specific perturbation, and dynamical simulations, we explore whether simple tri-trophic food webs can be recovered from a collapsed state. Our study examines in detail the topological features of predator-prey food webs that could either facilitate or impede their recovery. We demonstrate that the recoverability of complex food webs can be predicted by using a simple dimension-reduced model, with certain structural factors that could constrain the full recovery of collapsed food webs. Furthermore, dynamic simulations also highlighted the significance of topological features such as connectance and the number of predator links in determining recoverability. Our dimension-reduced modeling framework offers insights into the feasibility of restoring entire complex predator-prey networks through species-specific interventions. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of ecosystem resilience and aids in the development of targeted conservation strategies.
2024
Reviving collapsed plant–pollinator networks from a single species
PLOS Biology · 2024 · 22: e3002826
Abstract
Mutualistic ecological networks can suddenly transition to undesirable states due to small changes in environmental conditions. Recovering from such a collapse can be difficult as restoring the original environmental conditions may be infeasible. Additionally, such networks can also exhibit a phenomenon known as hysteresis, whereby the system could exhibit multiple states under the same environmental conditions, implying that ecological networks may not recover. Here, we attempted to revive collapsed mutualistic networks to a high-functioning state from a single species, using concepts from signal propagation theory and an eco-evolutionary model based on network structures of 115 empirical plant–pollinator networks. We found that restoring the environmental conditions rarely aided in recovery of collapsed networks, but a positive relationship between recovering pollinator density and network nestedness emerged, which was qualitatively supported by empirical plant–pollinator restoration data. In contrast, network resurrection from a collapsed state in undesirable environmental conditions where restoration has minimal impacts could be readily achieved by perturbing a single species or a few species that controls the response of the dynamical networks. Additionally, nestedness in networks and a moderate amount of trait variation could aid in the revival of networks even in undesirable environmental conditions. Our work suggests that focus should be applied to a few species whose dynamics could be steered to resurrect entire networks from a collapsed state and that network architecture could play a crucial role in reviving collapsed plant–pollinator networks.