Theories suggest that food webs might consist of groups of species forming \u2018blocks\u2019, \u2018compartments\u2019 or \u2018guilds\u2019. We consider ecological networks \u2013 subsets of complete food webs \u2013 involving species at adjacent trophic levels. Reciprocal specializations occur when (say) a pollinator (or group of pollinators) specializes on a particular flower species (or group of such species) and vice versa. Such specializations tend to group species into guilds. We characterize the level of reciprocal specialization for both antagonistic interactions \u2013 particularly parasitoids and their hosts \u2013 and mutualistic ones \u2013 such as insects and the flowers that they pollinate. We also examine whether trophic patterns might be \u2018palimpsests\u2019\u2013 that is, there might be reciprocal specialization within taxonomically related species within a network, but these might be obscured when these relationships are combined. Reciprocal specializations are rare in all these systems when tested against the most conservative null model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Theories suggest that food webs might consist of groups of species forming \u2018blocks\u2019, \u2018compartments\u2019 or \u2018guilds\u2019. We consider ecological networks \u2013 subsets of complete food webs \u2013 involving species at adjacent trophic levels. Reciprocal specializations occur when (say) a pollinator (or group of pollinators) specializes on a particular flower species (or group of such species) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"Ecology Letters","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"961-969","msr_page_range_start":"961","msr_page_range_end":"969","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"L.N. Joppa, J. Bascompte, J. Montoya, R. Sole, J. Sanderson, S.L. 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