Related papers: Tipping Elements in the Human Intestinal Ecosystem
Ecological systems are emergent features of ecological and adaptive dynamics of a community of interacting species. By natural selection through the abiotic environment and by co-adaptation within the community, species evolve, thereby…
Adaptive control in biological systems, such as intestinal immunity, remains poorly understood despite detailed knowledge of underlying regulatory networks. We propose an alternative framework based on stochastic martingale turnover, in…
A celebrated and controversial hypothesis conjectures that some biological systems --parts, aspects, or groups of them-- may extract important functional benefits from operating at the edge of instability, halfway between order and…
Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to global health. It emerges in multispecies microbial communities under antibiotic exposure. This makes antibiotic spectrum -- a drug's distribution of effects across species -- a potential key…
Human pathogens transmitted through environmental pathways are subject to stress and pressures outside of the host. These pressures may cause pathogen pathovars to diverge in their environmental persistence and their infectivity on an…
Insects play such a crucial role in ecosystems that a shift in demography of just a few species can have devastating consequences at environmental, social and economic levels. Despite this, evaluation of insect demography is strongly…
Recent work suggests that cross-feeding -- the secretion and consumption of metabolic biproducts by microbes -- is essential for understanding microbial ecology. Yet how cross-feeding and competition combine to give rise to ecosystem-level…
Many microorganisms live and evolve in complex fluids. Examples include mammalian spermatozoa in cervical mucus, worms (e.g., \textit{C. elegans}) in wet soil, and bacteria (e.g., \textit{H. pylori}) in our stomach lining. Due to the…
The outbreak of epidemics, the emergence of the financial crisis, the collapse of ecosystem, and the explosive spreading of rumors, we face many challenges in today's world. These real-world problems can be abstracted into a sequential…
Microbiomes are complex systems comprised of many interacting species. Species can survive harsh or changing conditions by rapid adaptation, a process accelerated by the exchange of genetic material between different species through…
In ecological systems heterogeneous interactions between pathogens take place simultaneously. This occurs, for instance, when two pathogens cooperate, while at the same time multiple strains of these pathogens co-circulate and compete.…
This review synthesizes recent advancements in understanding tipping points and cascading transitions within the Earth system, framing them through the lens of nonlinear dynamics and complexity science. It outlines the fundamental concepts…
Biological systems exhibit large-scale self-organized dynamics and structures which enable organisms to perform the functions of life. The field of active matter strives to develop and understand microscopically-driven nonequilibrium…
A large proportion of transiting planetary systems appear to possess only a single planet as opposed to multiple transiting planets. This excess of singles is indicative of significant mutual inclinations existing within a large number of…
Collective behaviors exhibited by animal groups, such as fish schools, bird flocks, or insect swarms are fascinating examples of self-organization in biology. Concepts and methods from statistical physics have been used to argue…
Predicting fitness of biologically-active populations, communities or systems in fluctuating environments is a long-standing challenge. Phenotypic plasticity and bet-hedging strategy, two key evolutionary traits living systems harness to…
Many biological populations exhibit diversity in their strategy for survival and reproduction in a given environment, and microbes are an example. We explore the fate of different strategies under sustained environmental change by…
Understanding the spread of any disease is a highly complex and interdisciplinary exercise as biological, social, geographic, economic, and medical factors may shape the way a disease moves through a population and options for its eventual…
Previous work has shown that species interacting in an ecosystem and actors transacting in an economic context may have notable similarities in behavior. However, the specific mechanism that may underlie similarities in nature and human…
It is of paramount importance to uncover influential nodes to control diffusion phenomena in a network. In recent works, there is a growing trend to investigate the role of the community structure to solve this issue. Up to now, the vast…