Does mutualism hinder biodiversity?

Abstract

A recent paper by James et al. finds that mutualistic interactions decrease the biodiversity of model ecosystems. However, this result can be reverted if we consider ecological trade-offs and choose parameters suitable for sparse mutualistic networks instead of fully connected networks.

Submitted on October 2012 as a Brief Communication Arising from James et al. Nature 487, 227-230 (2012)