Data from: Empirical evaluation of neutral interactions in host-parasite networks

While niche-based processes have been invoked extensively to explain the
structure of interaction networks, recent studies propose that neutrality
could also be of great importance. Under the neutral hypothesis, network
structure would simply emerge from random encounters between individuals
and thus would be directly linked to species abundance. We investigated
the impact of species abundance distributions on qualitative and
quantitative metrics of 113 host-parasite networks. We analysed the
concordance between neutral expectations and empirical observations at
interaction, species and network levels. We found that species abundance
accurately predicts network metrics at all levels. Despite host-parasite
systems being constrained by physiology and immunology, our results
suggest that neutrality could also explain, at least partially, their
structure. We hypothesize that trait-matching would determine potential
interactions between species, while abundance would determine their
realization.