Identifying key species in meta-communities

O_LIWith the ongoing biodiversity crisis, identifying which species are of particular importance to prevent the extinction of other species has become a pressing issue. However, most approaches to detect these important species are made at a local (i.e, community) level, without considering the potential effect of species dispersion in a landscape. C_LIO_LIWe present a modified PageRank algorithm to determine the importance of species in meta-communities based on two sets of networks: food webs that depict local trophic interactions and landscape networks representing the movement of species across different habitat patches. C_LIO_LIWe show that (i) what is considered an important species changes between isolated communities and meta-communities and (ii) the importance of a species in a meta-community depends on the position of its habitat patch in the landscape network. C_LIO_LIOur results stress the need for a global consideration of space in the identification of important species. C_LI