Assembly Graph as the Rosetta Stone of Ecological Assembly

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Authors

Chuliang Song 

Abstract

Ecological assembly---the process of ecological community formation through species introductions---has recently seen exciting theoretical advancements across dynamical, informational, and probabilistic approaches. However, these theories often remain inaccessible to non-theoreticians, and they lack a unifying lens. Here, I introduce the assembly graph as an integrative tool to connect these emerging theories. The assembly graph visually represents assembly dynamics, where nodes symbolize species combinations and edges represent transitions driven by species introductions. Through the lens of assembly graphs, I review how ecological processes reduce uncertainty in random species arrivals (informational approach), identify graphical properties that guarantee species coexistence and examine how the class of dynamical models constrain the topology of assembly graphs (dynamical approach), and quantify transition probabilities with incomplete information (probabilistic approach). To facilitate empirical testing, I also review methods to decompose complex assembly graphs into smaller, measurable components, as well as computational tools for deriving empirical assembly graphs. In sum, this math-light review of theoretical progress aims to catalyze empirical research towards a predictive understanding of ecological assembly.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2PK8Q

Subjects

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Keywords

Ecological Assembly, Priority effect, Species invasion, Assembly graph

Dates

Published: 2024-08-02 04:26

License

CC-BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Language:
English

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data and Code Availability Statement:
No data is used