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      An ecological network approach to predict ecosystem service vulnerability to species losses

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          Abstract

          Human-driven threats are changing biodiversity, impacting ecosystem services. The loss of one species can trigger secondary extinctions of additional species, because species interact–yet the consequences of these secondary extinctions for services remain underexplored. Herein, we compare robustness of food webs and the ecosystem services (hereafter ‘services’) they provide; and investigate factors determining service responses to secondary extinctions. Simulating twelve extinction scenarios for estuarine food webs with seven services, we find that food web and service robustness are highly correlated, but that robustness varies across services depending on their trophic level and redundancy. Further, we find that species providing services do not play a critical role in stabilizing food webs – whereas species playing supporting roles in services through interactions are critical to the robustness of both food webs and services. Together, our results reveal indirect risks to services through secondary species losses and predictable differences in vulnerability across services.

          Abstract

          Food web responses to species losses have the potential to cascade to ecosystem services. Here the authors apply ecological network robustness modelling to ecosystem services in salt marsh ecosystems, finding that species with supporting roles are critical to robustness of both food webs and ecosystem services.

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          Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity.

          The most unique feature of Earth is the existence of life, and the most extraordinary feature of life is its diversity. Approximately 9 million types of plants, animals, protists and fungi inhabit the Earth. So, too, do 7 billion people. Two decades ago, at the first Earth Summit, the vast majority of the world's nations declared that human actions were dismantling the Earth's ecosystems, eliminating genes, species and biological traits at an alarming rate. This observation led to the question of how such loss of biological diversity will alter the functioning of ecosystems and their ability to provide society with the goods and services needed to prosper.
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            Network structure and biodiversity loss in food webs: robustness increases with connectance

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              Biodiversity Loss Threatens Human Well-Being

              Biodiversity lies at the core of ecosystem processes fueling our planet's vital life-support systems; its degradation--by us--is threatening our own well-being and will disproportionately impact the poor.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Aislyn.Keyes@colorado.edu
                Journal
                Nat Commun
                Nat Commun
                Nature Communications
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2041-1723
                11 March 2021
                11 March 2021
                2021
                : 12
                : 1586
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.266190.a, ISNI 0000000096214564, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, , University of Colorado, ; Boulder, CO USA
                [2 ]GRID grid.133342.4, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9676, Depeartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, , University of California, ; Santa Barbara, CA USA
                [3 ]GRID grid.254333.0, ISNI 0000 0001 2296 8213, Department of Biology, , Colby College, ; Waterville, ME USA
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1323-1735
                Article
                21824
                10.1038/s41467-021-21824-x
                7952599
                33707438
                bf83cfe4-f74b-48e1-8fa1-4ed9c7ba1342
                © The Author(s) 2021

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 25 September 2020
                : 3 February 2021
                Categories
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                © The Author(s) 2021

                Uncategorized
                food webs,ecological modelling,ecosystem services
                Uncategorized
                food webs, ecological modelling, ecosystem services

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