Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37700642›Full record

ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023

Generalized mutualisms promote range expansion in both plant and ant partners.

Pooja Nathan, Evan P Economo, Benoit Guénard, Anna K Simonsen, Megan E Frederickson

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Forecasting alien species establishment and source regions: Quantitative assessment of potential ant invasions in Japan.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2025
    Article
  3. Coevolutionary hotspots favour dispersal and fuel biodiversity in mutualistic landscapes under environmental changes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Pooja NathanDepartment of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto M5S 3B2, Ontario, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-7951-8018
Evan P EconomoBiodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan.ORCID 0000-0001-7402-0432
Benoit GuénardSchool of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong.
Anna K SimonsenDepartment of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33199, USA.
Megan E FredericksonDepartment of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto M5S 3B2, Ontario, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-9058-7137

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Mutualism improves organismal fitness, but strong dependence on another species can also limit a species' ability to thrive in a new range if its partner is absent. We assembled a large, global dataset on mutualistic traits and species ranges to investigate how multiple plant-animal and plant-microbe mutualisms affect the spread of legumes and ants to novel ranges. We found that generalized mutualisms increase the likelihood that a species establishes and thrives beyond its native range, whereas specialized mutualisms either do not affect or reduce non-native spread. This pattern held in both legumes and ants, indicating that specificity between mutualistic partners is a key determinant of ecological success in a new habitat. Our global analysis shows that mutualism plays an important, if often overlooked, role in plant and insect invasions.

Indexed as

AntsFabaceaeAnimalsPhenotypeProbabilitySymbiosisantsgeneralizationinvasive specieslegumesmutualismrange size‌

Identifiers

PMID37700642
PMCPMC10498038

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.