Rodrigo Ramos-Jiliberto

Universidad Mayor · GEMA Center for Genomics, Ecology & Environment

The stability of isolated communities is determined by foodweb complexity.However, it is unclear how local stability interacts with dispersal in multitrophic metacommunities to shape biodiversity patterns. Furthermore, metacommunity dynamics in landscapes with non-trivial and dynamic structures are less understood. vspace{8pt}\newlineObjectives: We...

The stability of isolated communities is determined by foodweb complexity. However, it is unclear how local stability interacts with dispersal in multitrophic metacommunities to shape biodiversity patterns. Furthermore, metacommunity dynamics in landscapes with non-trivial and dynamic structures are less understood. We aim to evaluate the influence...

An increase in prey richness, prey size and predator trophic position with predator body size has been consistently reported as prime features of food web organization. These trends have been explained by non-exclusive mechanisms. First, the increase in energy demand with body size determines that larger predators must reduce prey selectivity for a...

Cropland ecosystem functioning may be affected by human perturbations transmitted from adjacent ecosystems, such as freshwater systems. However, our limited knowledge of the ecological interactions within cropland–freshwater networks hinders projecting the consequences of anthropogenic pressures. We reviewed the information from freshwater and crop...

The dispersal-body mass association has been highlighted as a main determinant of biodiversity patterns in metacommunities. However, less attention has been devoted to other well-recognized determinants of metacommunity diversity: the scaling in density and regional richness with body size. Among active dispersers, the increase in movement with bod...

The dispersal–body mass association has been highlighted as a main determinant of biodiversity patterns in metacommunities. However, less attention has been devoted to other well-recognized determinants of metacommunity diversity: the scaling in density and regional richness with body size. Among active dispersers, the increase in movement with bod...

People drive transitions. Current urban living conditions, specifically food systems, challenge the health, wellbeing and coherence of individuals and whole societies, and for effective change toward resilient communities, people need to reinvent the way they produce, distribute and consume food. Consequently, in their communities' people are creat...

Temporary ponds are distributed worldwide, providing significant ecological services. Their limnological features are influenced by a set of regional (mainly climate) and local (natural or anthropogenic) factors. To evaluate the differences in their ecological functioning in distant geographic regions, we analysed the main features of 90 temporary...

Ecological theory recognizes the importance of the variety of species for maintaining the functioning of ecosystems and their derived services. We assert that when studying the effects of shifts in biodiversity levels using mathematical models, their dynamics must be sensitive to the variety of species traits but not to raw species numbers, a prope...

(Introducción): Este articulo propone avances en la modelización y el análisis de los sistemas socio-naturales objeto de las políticas públicas en medio ambiente y desarrollo sustentable. (Objetivo): Presentar una propuesta de modelización sistémica formal de sistemas socio-naturales en contextos de decisión estratégicos. (Metodología): Basados e...

Ecological theory recognizes the importance of the variety of species for maintaining the functioning of ecosystems and their derived services. We assert that when studying the effects of shifts in biodiversity levels using mathematical models, their dynamics must be sensitive to the variety of species traits but not to raw species numbers, a prope...

Los mayores desafíos de la humanidad se arraigan en las múltiples e intrincadas relaciones entre nuestra sociedad y el mundo natural. Y a esta complejidad inherente –que emerge de las intersecciones de multiples disciplinas–, se suma el ser esquiva al razonamiento intuitivo. De ahí la importancia de contar con herramientas que permitan analizar int...

Population declines of pollinators constitute a major concern for the fate of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in a context of global change. Massive declines of pollinator populations driven by habitat loss, pollution, and climate change have been reported, whose consequences at community and ecosystem levels remain elusive. We condu...

Plant–pollinator interactions are key for ecosystem maintenance and world crop production, and their occurrence depends on the synchronization of life-cycle events among interacting species. Phenological shifts observed for plant and pollinator species increase the risk of phenological mismatches, threatening community stability. However, the magni...

The calculation of nestedness has become a routine analysis in the study of ecological networks, as it is commonly associated with community resilience, robustness and species persistence. While meaningful in species distributional patterns, for an interaction matrix to be nested, specialist species must interact with ordered subsets of subsequentl...

Mutualistic networks are highly dynamic, characterized by high temporal turnover of species and interactions. Yet, we have a limited understanding of how the internal structure of these networks and the roles species play in them vary through time. We used 6 years of observation data and a novel statistical method (dynamic stochastic block models)...

Many freshwater ecosystems worldwide, and particularly Mediterranean ones, show increasing levels of salinity. These changes in water conditions could affect abundance and distribution of inhabiting species as well as the provision of ecosystem services. In this study we conduct laboratory experiments using the macroinvertebrate Smicridea annulicor...

Ecological communities are undeniably diverse, both in terms of the species that compose them as well as the type of interactions that link species to each other. Despite this long recognition of the coexistence of multiple interaction types in nature, little is known about the consequences of this diversity for community functioning. In the ongoin...

The network approach is crucial to understand how ecosystems are structured and how they will respond to the disturbances (e.g. the current global change). We have recreated the multi‐interaction network of a shallow freshwater lake dominated by submerged macrophytes (Charophytes), a known system very vulnerable to environmental changes, considerin...

Many freshwater ecosystems worldwide, and particularly Mediterranean ones, show increasing levels of salinity. This changes in water conditions could affect abundance and distribution of inhabiting species as well as the provision of ecosystem services. In this study we conduct laboratory experiments using the macroinvertebrate Smicridea annulicorn...

Mutualistic networks are highly dynamic, characterized by high temporal turnover of species and interactions. Yet, we have a limited understanding of how the internal structure of these networks and the roles species play in them vary through time. We used six years of observation data and a novel statistical method (dynamic stochastic block models...

Abstract Plant–pollinator systems are essential for ecosystem functioning, which calls for an understanding of the determinants of their robustness to environmental threats. Previous studies considering such robustness have focused mostly on species’ connectivity properties, particularly their degree. We hypothesized that species’ phenological attr...

Ecological communities are undeniably diverse, both in terms of the species that compose them as well as the type of interactions that link species to each other. Despite this long-recognition of the coexistence of multiple interaction types in nature, little is known about the consequences of this diversity for community functioning. In the ongoin...

In nature species react to a variety of endogenous and exogenous ecological factors. Understanding the mechanisms by which these factors interact and drive population dynamics is a need for understanding and managing ecosystems. In this study we assess, using laboratory experiments, the effects that the combinations of two exogenous factors exert o...

Species invasions constitute a major and poorly understood threat to plant-pollinator systems. General theory predicting which factors drive species invasion success and subsequent effects on native ecosystems is particularly lacking. We address this problem using a consumer-resource model of adaptive behavior and population dynamics to evaluate th...

Understanding the processes and consequences of habitat fragmentation is highly relevant since it represents a serious threat to biodiversity. However, fragmentation includes several facets that are difficult to dissect, such as loss of habitat connectivity, edge effects, and habitat loss. In this study, we analyze by mathematical and computational...

A large variety of antipredator defenses are exhibited by plants, animals and microbes in nature. A deep understanding of the dynamic consequences of prey responses to predation risk is essential for building a comprehensive theory of food webs. Here we present a simple classification of prey defenses based on the sensitivity of prey immunity to pr...

In addition to natural stressors such as predation risk, aquatic organisms receive the simultaneous impact of anthropogenic stressors like pollution. In order to advance our understanding of multiple stressor effects, we evaluated the potential costs in the population growth rate derived from the sub-lethal effect of exposure to the pesticide metha...

In a recent paper published in Ecosphere, their authors suggest that extending the logistic growth model in its usual r - K parametrization to a multi-patch environment results in undesirable properties, that were referred to as the "perfect mixing paradox". This led the authors to recommend using the Verhulst r - {\alpha} parametrization of the lo...

Much research debates whether properties of ecological networks such as nestedness and con-nectance stabilise biological communities while ignoring key behavioural aspects of organisms within these networks. Here, we computationally assess how adaptive foraging (AF) behaviour interacts with network architecture to determine the stability of plant–p...

Interaction strength among species plays a crucial role in shaping the functioning of ecological communities, but it is often assumed to be insensitive to inter-individual variation in underlying parameters such as attack rates or handling time. Ecological factors including stressors exert age/size-dependent effects on such behavioral parameters, p...

The strength of species interactions influences strongly the structure and dynamics of ecological systems. Thus, quantifying such strength is crucial to understand how species interactions shape communities and ecosystems. Although the concepts and measurement of interaction strength in food webs have received much attention, there has been compara...

In nature the effect that pollutants exert on exposed organisms could depend on the state and dynamics of natural environmental factors as well as on the internal state of the exposed organisms. In this study we evaluated how level and variability of food, as well as the age of exposure can modify the effects of the pesticide deltamethrin on the fr...

Facultative diapause should be favoured by natural selection in temporary variable habitats. Diapause patterns are evolutionary constrained because producing diapause is resource demanding, which might have implications for competitive dynamics and competitor coexistence through mechanisms such as the storage effect. Besides these implications, com...

Background/Question/Methods The invasion of alien species into native ecosystems constitutes one of the major anthropogenic threats to the function and integrity of pollination systems. However, ecologists lack a clear understanding of factors driving invasion success and subsequent effects on the invaded ecosystems. Here, we use an integrative mo...

Production of diapausing eggs in many zooplankton species occurs after partial switching from parthenogenesis to sexual reproduction. Storage effect theory predicts the stable long-term coexistence of competitors investing in diapausing stages, but it does not address the effect of such investment on short-term coexistence. The freshwater rotifer B...

Long-term studies of plant-pollinator interactions are almost nonexistent in the scientific literature. The objective of the present study was to determine changes and trends in the pollinator assemblage of ulmo (Eucryphia cordifolia; Cunoniaceae), a canopy-emergent tree found in Chilean temperate rainforests. We assessed the temporal variability o...

Pollution represents a major threat to biodiversity. A wide class of pollutants tends to accumulate within organisms and propagate within communities via trophic interactions. Thus the final effects of accumulable pollutants may be determined by the structure of food webs and not only by the susceptibility of their constituent species. Species with...

En un artículo reciente, Razeto-Barry defendió una forma específica de entender el concepto de autopoiesis en base a la definición y proyecto original de Humberto Maturana y Francisco Varela, cuando crearon el concepto. Según esta interpretación, el concepto de autopoiesis hace énfasis en la idea de la mantención de la identidad individual (también...

Humberto Maturana y Francisco Varela crearon el concepto de Autopoiesis para definir lo Vivo desde un punto de vista biológico en su ya clásico libro De Máquinas y Seres Vivos. En esta obra, los autores definen al ser vivo a partir de la circularidad propia de su organización. Sin embargo, el carácter estructural del concepto permitió a los autores...

Human activities have led to massive influxes of pollutants, degrading the habitat of species and simplifying their biodiversity. However, the interaction between food web complexity, pollution and stability is still poorly understood. In this study we evaluate the effect exerted by accumulable pollutants on the relationship between complexity and...

Based on recent advances in ecological network theory, we present an ad hoc conceptual framework and a methodological proposal for the evaluation of the ecological relevance of species within a community, oriented towards the Ecological Risk Assessment in Chilean aquatic systems. The procedure is theoretical and based on the quality of available in...

In this work the available information from scientific and technical studies is compiled and analyzed, to determine the taxonomic composition and trophic structure of river communities belonging to five hydrological basins of Chile, located within an arid-Mediterranean environmental gradient. The basins were: Loa, Huasco, Limarí, Cachapoal y Mataqu...

Although geneticists and population ecologist have considered in their explanations the importance of both horizontal –interspecifi c– and vertical –intraspecifi c– paths for the fl ow of information, energy or matter among organisms, community ecology and particularly network ecology have been strongly biased towards considering only horizontal ef...

Based on recent advances in ecological network theory, we present an ad hoc conceptual framework and a methodological proposal for the evaluation of the ecological relevance of species within a community, oriented towards the Ecological Risk Assessment in Chilean aquatic systems. The procedure is theoretical and based on the quality of available in...

This work deals with some typographical mistakes into the above-referenced paper. Although they do not affect the main results, it is necessary to make due corrections.We affirm that the results and conclusions obtained are correct and the errors have no further implications in the aforementioned paper.

Pollination systems are recognized as critical for the maintenance of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore, the understanding of mechanisms that promote the integrity of those mutualistic assemblages is an important issue for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem function. In this study we present a new population dynamics mod...

In this work we comment on the letter to the editor “The effect of prey refuge in a simple predator–prey model” with observations to the article by González-Olivares and Ramos-Jiliberto published in 2003.

We study an ecological network composed by a set of interacting populations whose dynamics are governed by a non–autonomous w–periodic ODE system, which has a unique solution w–periodic and globally attractive. By following the chain rule approach combined with the Implicit Function Theorem, we deduce some identities between the community and the s...

1. Earlier studies used static models to evaluate the responses of mutualistic networks to external perturbations. Two classes of dynamics can be distinguished in ecological networks; population dynamics, represented mainly by changes in species abundances, and topological dynamics, represented by changes in the architecture of the web. 2. In this...

In this work, a bidimensional differential equation system obtained by modifying the well-known predator–prey Rosenzweig–MacArthur model is analyzed by considering prey growth influenced by the Allee effect.One of the main consequences of this modification is a separatrix curve that appears in the phase plane, dividing the behavior of the trajector...

The coast of Chañaral Bay in northern Chile has been affected by copper mine wastes for decades. This sustained perturbation has disrupted the intertidal community in several ways, but the mechanisms behind the observed shifts in local biodiversity remain poorly understood. Our main goal was to identify the species (lumped into trophic groups) belo...

Background/Question/Methods Mutualistic systems composed by flowering plants and their pollinators are fundamental for the maintenance of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems. Nevertheless, our understanding of the factors affecting their dynamic responses to environmental disruption is still poor. In this study we analyze the effect of adaptiv...

The expression of phenotypically plastic traits in prey organisms, triggered by changes in the abundance of their predators, is customarily assumed to involve costs in some fitness components such as fecundity, growth or survival. However, these plastic responses may also have an interaction cost, which is assessed by the strength of interspecific...

In ecological communities, pollution driven perturbations exert immediate effects on sensitive individuals, but these effects may be transmitted among interacting organisms and spread over the community through several paths. This makes the assessment and prediction of ecological consequences of pollution difficult. The propagation of perturbation...

In ecological communities, pollution driven perturbations exert immediate effects on sensitive individuals, but these effects may be transmitted among interacting organisms and spread over the community through several paths. This makes the assessment and prediction of ecological consequences of pollution difficult. The propagation of perturbation...

Theoretical predictions suggest that adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and induced defenses in particular, exert a stabilizing effect on ecological systems and increase the likelihood of species coexistence. Nonetheless, up to now, there is little empirical support for this hypothesized mechanism of diversity preservation. We experimentally assessed...

Many organisms exhibit ontogenetic shifts in their diet and habitat use, which often exert a large influence on the structure and expected dynamics of food webs and ecological communities. Nevertheless, reliable methods for detecting these niche shifts from consumption data are limited. In this study we present a new approach for the detection and...

The expression of phenotypically plastic traits in prey organisms, triggered by changes in the abundance of their predators, is customarily assumed to involve costs in some fitness components such as fecundity, growth or survival. However, these plastic responses may also have an interaction cost, which is assessed by the strength of interspecific...

Intraguild predation constitutes a widespread interaction occurring across different taxa, trophic positions and ecosystems, and its endogenous dynamical properties have been shown to affect the abundance and persistence of the involved populations as well as those connected with them within food webs. Although optimal foraging decisions displayed...

Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 1546–1559 Species coexistence within ecosystems and the stability of patterns of temporal changes in population sizes are central topics in ecological theory. In the last decade, adaptive behaviour has been proposed as a mechanism of population stabilization. In particular, widely distributed adaptive trophic behaviour (A...

1. A key aspect of the ecology and evolution of adaptive prey responses to predator risk is the timing by which the former develop a defensive trait in response to inducing signals released by the latter. This property, called reactivity, has been shown to affect population stability and persistence. 2. Theoretically, the minimal predator density r...

Early work based on the Dynamical Systems Theory demonstrates that the larger the number of interacting populations, the system tends to be more unstable. Nevertheless, empirical evidence indicates that natural populations more often exhibit stable dynamics, in spite of being embedded into complex communities. Adaptive behavior of individuals is fo...