Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 24 July 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5939, pp. 416 - 419
DOI: 10.1126/science.1170749
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspective

Disentangling the Web of Life

Jordi Bascompte

Biodiversity research typically focuses on species richness and has often neglected interactions, either by assuming that such interactions are homogeneously distributed or by addressing only the interactions between a pair of species or a few species at a time. In contrast, a network approach provides a powerful representation of the ecological interactions among species and highlights their global interdependence. Understanding how the responses of pairwise interactions scale to entire assemblages remains one of the great challenges that must be met as society faces global ecosystem change.

Integrative Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Calle Américo Vespucio s/n, E-41092 Sevilla, Spain. E-mail: bascompte{at}ebd.csic.es

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)