Disentangling co-occurrence patterns in n-partite ecosystems

Abstract

The need to harmonise apparently irreconcilable arrangements in an ecosystem –nestedness andsegregation– has triggered so far different strategies. Methodological refinements, or the inclusion ofbehavioural preferences to the network dynamics offer a limited approach to the problem, since oneremains constrained within a 2-dimensional view of an ecosystem, i.e. a presence-absence matrix.Here we question this partial-view paradigm, and show that nestedness and segregation may coexistacross a varied range of scenarios. To do so, we rely on an upscaled representation of an ecologicalcommunity as ann-partite hypergraph, inspired by Hutchinson’s high-dimensional niche conceptand the latest trends on ecological multilayer networks. This yields an inclusive description of anecological system, for which we develop a natural extension of the definition of nestedness to largerdimensional spaces, revealing how competitive exclusion may operate regardless of a highly nestedbipartite system.