Zhu et al. examine two types of membership overlap: overlap with mature communities and overlap with young communities.

• Overlapping with mature communities is beneficial to survival
• Overlapping with young communities is harmful to survival
• Young communities tend to benefit from membership overlap while mature communities do not
• Membership overlap is most beneficial when young communities are overlapping with other mature intersecting communities and membership
• Membership is least beneficial when mature focal communities are sharing members with young intersecting communities