Bridging nutritional geometry and network ecology to quantify the robustness of nutritional networks

Jordan Patrick Cuff , Raul Costa Pereira, Maximillian P. T. G. Tercel, Brooke Zanco , Juliano Morimoto, Finlay Ryder, Colin M. Lynch, Ian P. Vaughan, Sheena Cotter, Beatrice Dale, Rosy Christopher, Fredric M. Windsor

Understanding the robustness and resilience of ecological networks is key to managing ecosystems and mitigating biodiversity loss. Simple models of network robustness simulate species losses across ecological networks but lack physiological realism, asserting that species persist if they interact with another organism. This neglects the nutritional consequences of resource loss and nutrition as a key driver of interactions. Defining how nutrition drives the robustness of ecological networks requires a fundamental understanding of how nutrition drives fitness, which nutritional geometry offers.
Here, we discuss the potential for bridging nutritional geometry and network ecology to define the thresholds for nutrition-mediated secondary extinctions in networks and, subsequently, nutritional network robustness. Through this integration, nutritional status can be quantified across scales, from individuals to ecosystems. Network rewiring in this context provides a mechanistic basis for predicting shifts in trophic interactions and their subsequent implications for energy and nutrient flow. We present a framework that integrates nutritional geometry and network ecology by combining individual-based geometric approaches with broader network-based analyses, which is currently underexplored. Our hope is that this can advance collaboration across nutritional geometry and network ecology to enhance our understanding of how nutrition drives the structure and health of ecosystems.