Related papers: Is incoherence required for sustainability?
Empirical evidence suggesting that living systems might operate in the vicinity of critical points, at the borderline between order and disorder, has proliferated in recent years, with examples ranging from spontaneous brain activity to…
Natural systems are remarkably robust and resilient, maintaining essential functions despite variability, uncertainty, and hostile conditions. Understanding these nonlinear, dynamic behaviours is challenging because such systems involve…
We investigate species-rich mathematical models of ecosystems. While much of the existing literature focuses on the properties of equilibrium fixed points, persistent dynamics (e.g., limit cycles or chaos) have also been observed, both in…
Rhythmic activities that alternate between coherent and incoherent phases are ubiquitous in chemical, ecological, climate, or neural systems. Despite their importance, general mechanisms for their emergence are little understood. In order…
It is generally recognized that a distinguishing feature of life is its peculiar capability to avoid equilibration. The origin of this capability and its evolution along the timeline of abiogenesis is not yet understood. We propose to study…
Unlike many physical nonequilibrium systems, in biological systems, the coupling to external energy sources is not a fixed parameter but adaptively controlled by the system itself. We do not have theoretical frameworks that allow for such…
Ecosystems are complex systems, currently experiencing several threats associated with global warming, intensive exploitation, and human-driven habitat degradation. Such threats are pushing ecosystems to the brink of collapse. Because of a…
Biological information processing is often carried out by complex networks of interconnected dynamical units. A basic question about such networks is that of reliability: if the same signal is presented many times with the network in…
There has been a long debate on how new levels of organization have evolved. It might seem unlikely, as cooperation must prevail over competition. One well-studied example is the emergence of autocatalytic sets, which seem to be a…
The network of interactions in complex systems, strongly influences their resilience, the system capability to resist to external perturbations or structural damages and to promptly recover thereafter. The phenomenon manifests itself in…
A classic measure of ecological stability describes the tendency of a community to return to equilibrium after small perturbation. While many advances show how the network structure of these communities severely constrains such tendencies,…
Connectivity patterns of ecological elements are often the core concern of ecologists working at multiple levels of organization (e.g., populations, ecosystems, and landscapes) because these patterns often reflect the forces shaping the…
Coherence evolution of two food web models can be obtained under the stirring effect of chaotic advection. Each food web model sustains a three--level trophic system composed of interacting predators, consumers and vegetation. These…
Ecosystems, which are intricate amalgams of biological communities and their surrounding environments, continually evolve under the influence of their myriad interactions. The world is currently facing intensifying environmental…
Robustness, the ability of a system to maintain performance under significant and unanticipated environmental changes, is a critical property for robotic systems. While biological systems naturally exhibit robustness, there is no…
Robustness, the insensitivity of some of a biological system's functionalities to a set of distinct conditions, is intimately linked to fitness. Recent studies suggest that it may also play a vital role in enabling the evolution of species.…
Mays celebrated theoretical work of the 70s contradicted the established paradigm by demonstrating that complexity leads to instability in biological systems. Here Mays random-matrix modelling approach is generalized to realistic…
Social systems must fulfil four basic functions to ensure their survival in competitive conditions. Social systems must provide for: (1) energy and other necessities of life, (2) security against external and internal threats, (3) identity…
When complex systems are driven to extinction by some external factor, their non-stationary dynamics can present an intermittent behaviour between relative tranquility and burst of activity whose consequences are often catastrophic. To…
On a global level, ecological communities are being perturbed at an unprecedented rate by human activities and environmental instabilities. Yet, we understand little about what factors facilitate or impede long-term persistence of these…