Mutualistic Network — Nestedness & Stability
Plant-pollinator bipartite networks: nested interaction structure, NODF metric, cascade extinction
Network
Plants (P):
20
Pollinators (A):
25
Connectance C:
0.20
Nestedness (NODF target):
0.60
Generate Network
Remove Most-connected Plant
Restore Network
NODF = (N_rows + N_cols)/(P(P-1)/2 + A(A-1)/2)
Mutualistic strength γᵢⱼ ∝ k_i^{-δ}
Nested mutualistic networks (plants-pollinators, plants-frugivores) show a core of generalists interacting with all specialists. High nestedness increases biodiversity but creates fragility to generalist loss. NODF quantifies nestedness.