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Metagenomics provides a powerful new tool set for investigating evolutionary interactions with the environment. However, an absence of model-based statistical methods means that researchers are often not able to make full use of this…
Ecosystems are formed by networks of species and their interactions. Traditional models of such interactions assume a constant interaction strength between a given pair of species. However, there is often significant trait variation among…
We investigate a class of models for opinion dynamics in a population with two interacting families of individuals. Each family has an intrinsic mean field "Voter-like" dynamics which is influenced by interaction with the other family. The…
Over the past century, nonlinear difference and differential equations have been used to understand conditions for species coexistence. However, these models fail to account for random fluctuations due to demographic and environmental…
The statistical properties of an ecosystem composed of species interacting via pairwise, random interactions and deterministic, concentration limiting self-interaction are studied analytically with tools of equilibrium statistical mechanics…
Ecological interactions can dramatically alter evolutionary outcomes in complex communities. Yet, the framework of population genetics largely neglects interactions from a species-rich community. Here, we bridge this gap by using dynamical…
Ecosystems with a large number of species are often modelled as Lotka-Volterra dynamical systems built around a large random interaction matrix. Under some known conditions, a global equilibrium exists and is unique. In this article, we…
Understanding the assembly of ecosystems to estimate the number of species at different spatial scales is a challenging problem. Until now, maximum entropy approaches have lacked the important feature of considering space in an explicit…
The growth of complex populations, such as microbial communities, forests, and cities, occurs over vastly different spatial and temporal scales. Although research in different fields has developed detailed, system-specific models to…
We analyze the nonlinear relaxation of a complex ecosystem composed of many interacting species. The ecological system is described by generalized Lotka-Volterra equations with a multiplicative noise. The transient dynamics is studied in…
We analyze the role of the Allee effect, a positive correlation between population density and mean individual fitness, for ecological communities formed by a large number of species. Our study is performed using the generalized…
Preserving biodiversity and ecosystem stability is a challenge that can be pursued through modern statistical mechanics modeling. Here we introduce a variational maximum entropy-based algorithm to evaluate the entropy in a minimal ecosystem…
In complex ecological communities, species may self-organize into clusters or clumps where highly similar species can coexist. The emergence of such species clusters can be captured by the interplay between neutral and niche theories. Based…
Species' interactions are shaped by their traits. Thus, we expect traits -- in particular, trait (dis)similarity -- to play a central role in determining whether a particular set of species coexists. Traits are, in turn, the outcome of an…
We propose a novel class of network models for temporal dyadic interaction data. Our goal is to capture a number of important features often observed in social interactions: sparsity, degree heterogeneity, community structure and…
Research over the past few decades has assumed the richness (number of species) to be the primary driver of the biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF) relationship. However, biodiversity is multi-dimensional, and richness alone does not…
Accurate biodiversity monitoring is essential for effective environmental policy, yet current practices often rely on arbitrarily defined ecosystems, communities, and ad-hoc indicator species, limiting cost-efficiency and reproducibility.…
Social interaction between microbes can be described at many levels of details, ranging from the biochemistry of cell-cell interactions to the ecological dynamics of populations. Choosing the best level to model microbial communities…
The assembly of ecological communities from a pool of species is central to ecology, but the effect of this process on properties of community interaction networks is still largely unknown. Here, we use a systematic analytical framework to…
We describe pattern formation in ecological systems using a version of the classical Lotka-Volterra model characterized by a spatial scale which controls the predator-prey interaction range. Analytical and simulational results show that…