Fig. 3. Food web and ecosystem service robustness are highly and positively correlated (r_s[36] = 0.884, P = 9.504e–13).

We ran a two-tailed Spearman’s correlation test on the food web and ecosystem service robustness for all 3 systems and all 12 sequences. The black line is a regression line. The shape of data points represents the salt marsh system: Bahia Falsa de Sant Quintin (square, Fig. 1c), Carpinteria Salt Marsh (circle, Fig. 1a), and Estero de Punta Banda (triangle, Fig. 1b). The color denotes the sequence of species removals: ecosystem service providers (removed by biomass and randomly), supporting species (removed by high-to-low importance, low-to-high importance, and randomly), most-to-least connected, randomly (reporting: highest, lowest and mean, n = 1000 randomizations), rarity (removed by relative abundance—from least to most abundant), and vulnerable species (removed from least to most abundant).