Rare species organize themselves into ghettos to survive

Researchers from UNIGE and Uméå show that to resist stronger species, rare animal and plant species group together in ghettos to help each other, maintaining biodiversity. How can you survive when your species has few representatives' An international team of researchers, led by the Universities of Umeå (Sweden) and Geneva (UNIGE, Switzerland), demonstrates that animal and plant communities are organized into ethnic neighbourhoods, where species in low abundance come together to strengthen their persistence against more competitive species. The highlighting of this exceptional ecological model, illustrated by more than 300 ecological communities around the world, is the main conclusion of a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on biodiversity in competitive environments. "Animal and plant communities are organized into ethnic neighbourhoods, as can sometimes be found in some large megacities," says Joaquin Calatayud, a researcher at Umeå University in Sweden, who led the research. This organization could explain the persistence of rare species over time, as it would help them escape the pressure of stronger competitors, either through cooperation between rare species or through the use of different micro-habitats. Scientists analyzed more than 300 communities of mosses, plants, insects or corals in various regions of the world. By combining network theory and numerical simulations, they detected ghettos and explored the mechanisms behind these distributions.