Resumen de Plant-animal mutualistic networks: the architecture of biodiversity

Jordi Bascompte Sacrest

• The mutualistic interactions between plants and the animals that pollinate them or disperse their fruits have molded the organization of Earths's biodiversity. These interactions create networks of interdependence often times involving dozens or hundreds of species. Recent research has used concepts from graph theory to characterize the architecture of these networks. Mutualistic networks are heterogeneous, nested and build upon weak and asymmetric links among species. This network architecture highly affects its robustness to perturbations such as the extinction of a species.