2014/01/06 by J. Jelle Lever, Egbert H. van Nes, Marten Scheffer +1 · 4 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Plant and animal studies #Ecosystem dynamics and resilience #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
paper · doi:10.1111/ele.12236
openalex publication_date 2014/01/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Declines in pollinator populations may harm biodiversity and agricultural productivity. Little attention has, however, been paid to the systemic response of mutualistic communities to global environmental change. Using a modelling approach and merging network theory with theory on critical transitions, we show that the scale and nature of critical transitions is likely to be influenced by the architecture of mutualistic networks. Specifically, we show that pollinator populations may collapse suddenly once drivers of pollinator decline reach a critical point. A high connectance and/or nestedness of the mutualistic network increases the capacity of pollinator populations to persist under harsh conditions. However, once a tipping point is reached, pollinator populations collapse simultaneously. Recovering from this single community-wide collapse requires a relatively large improvement of conditions. These findings may have large implications for our view on the sustainability of pollinator communities and the services they provide.