Related papers: Some paradoxes in the Tilman model, how to avoid o…
The paradox of enrichment was observed by M. Rosenzweig in a class of predator-prey models. Two of the parameters in the models are crucial for the paradox. These two parameters are the prey's carrying capacity and prey's half-saturation…
This paper presents Wanderer, a model of how autonomous adaptive systems coordinate internal biological needs with moment-by-moment assessments of the probabilities of events in the external world. The extent to which Wanderer moves about…
An imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure will lead to a change in body weight (mass) and body composition (fat and lean masses). A quantitative understanding of the processes involved, which currently remains lacking, will…
The competitive exclusion principle asserts that coexisting species must occupy distinct ecological niches (i.e. the number of surviving species can not exceed the number of resources). An open question is to understand if and how different…
In recommendation settings, there is an apparent trade-off between the goals of accuracy (to recommend items a user is most likely to want) and diversity (to recommend items representing a range of categories). As such, real-world…
The method of maximum entropy has been very successful but there are cases where it has either failed or led to paradoxes that have cast doubt on its general legitimacy. My more optimistic assessment is that such failures and paradoxes…
Microbial communities feature an immense diversity of species and this diversity is linked with outcomes ranging from ecosystem stability to medical prognoses. Yet the mechanisms underlying microbial diversity are under debate. While simple…
Recently, we introduced in arXiv:1105.2434 a model for product adoption in social networks with multiple products, where the agents, influenced by their neighbours, can adopt one out of several alternatives. We identify and analyze here…
Understanding consumption dynamics and its impact on the whole economy and welfare within the present economic crisis is not an easy task. Indeed the level of consumer demand for different goods varies with the prices, consumer incomes and…
We have shown that commonly used model-fitting methods fail when the underlying ecological system is chaotic. Importantly, Hartig & Dormann [arXiv:1305.3544] suggest an alternative method that is able to overcome this problem for the…
Classical understanding of the outcome of the struggle for existence results in the Darwinian survival of the fittest. Here we show that the situation may be different, more complex and arguably more interesting. Specifically, we show that…
We explore Fermi's Paradox via a system of differential equations and using simulations of dispersal and interactions between competing interplanetary civilizations. To quantify the resources and potentials of these worlds, three different…
Microbial communities routinely have several alternative stable states observed for the same environmental parameters. Sudden and irreversible transitions between these states make external manipulation of these systems more complicated. To…
Humankind has spread worldwide supported by cultural and technological knowledge, but the environmental sustainability on the human niche evolution depends on a new human beings relationship with the biosphere. Human lifestyles nowadays are…
Individuals use models to guide decisions, but many models are wrong. This paper studies which misspecified models are likely to persist when individuals also entertain alternative models. Consider an agent who uses her model to learn the…
Meta-analysis is an important tool for combining results from multiple studies and has been widely used in evidence-based medicine for several decades. This paper reports, for the first time, an interesting and valuable paradox in…
This is the first of two papers where we discuss the limits imposed by competition to the biodiversity of species communities. In this first paper we study the coexistence of competing species at the fixed point of population dynamic…
One of the central questions of metacommunity theory is how dispersal of organisms affects species diversity. Here we show that the diversity-dispersal relationship should not be studied in isolation of other abiotic and biotic flows in the…
Resource allocation problems are a fundamental domain in which to evaluate the fairness properties of algorithms. The trade-offs between fairness and utilization have a long history in this domain. A recent line of work has considered…
We develop a model of social learning from overabundant information: Short-lived agents sequentially choose from a large set of (flexibly correlated) information sources for prediction of an unknown state. Signal realizations are public. We…