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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…
We propose new direction to understanding evolutionary dynamics of complex networks using two different types of collaboration networks: academic collaboration networks; and, disaster collaboration networks. The results show that academic…
Transformations to create more sustainable social-ecological systems are urgently needed. Structural change is a feature of transformations of social-ecological systems that is of critical importance but is little understood. Here, we…
We study the effect of speciation, i.e. the introduction of new species through evolution into communities, in the setting of predator-prey systems. Predator-prey dynamics is classically well modeled by Lotka-Volterra equations, also when…
Many systems on our planet are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across a "tipping point," such as mass extinctions in ecological networks, cascading failures in infrastructure systems,…
Robustness of ecological flow networks under random failure of arcs is considered with respect to two different functionalities: coherence and circulation. In our previous work, we showed that each functionality is associated with a natural…
We use a generalised version of the individual-based Tangled Nature model of evolutionary ecology to study the relationship between ecosystem structure and evolutionary history. Our evolved model ecosystems typically exhibit interaction…
Mutualistic interactions, where species interact to obtain mutual benefits, constitute an essential component of natural ecosystems. The use of ecological networks to represent the species and their ecological interactions allows the study…
Ecologists and conservation biologists need to identify the relative importance of species to make sound management decisions and effectively allocate scarce resources. We introduce a new method, termed environ centrality, to determine the…
We discuss the relevance of studying ecology within the framework of Complexity Science from a statistical mechanics approach. Ecology is concerned with understanding how systems level properties emerge out of the multitude of interactions…
Ecological resilience refers to the ability of a system to retain its state when subject to state variables perturbations or parameter changes. While understanding and quantifying resilience is crucial to anticipate the possible regime…
We introduce an individual-based model of a complex ecological community with random interactions. The model contains a large number of species, each with a finite population of individuals, subject to discrete reproduction and death…
Complex systems such as ecological communities and neuron networks are essential parts of our everyday lives. These systems are composed of units which interact through intricate networks. The ability to predict sudden changes in the…
We investigate the dynamics of two models of biological networks with purely suppressive interactions between the units; species interacting via niche competition and neurons via inhibitory synaptic coupling. In both of these cases,…
Conservation science depends on an accurate understanding of what's happening in a given ecosystem. How many species live there? What is the makeup of the population? How is that changing over time? Species Distribution Modeling (SDM) seeks…
The evolutionary relationships among organisms have traditionally been represented using rooted phylogenetic trees. However, due to reticulate processes such as hybridization or lateral gene transfer, evolution cannot always be adequately…
Ecological models traditionally explain stability and coexistence through pairwise interactions among species. These interactions can also involve groups of three or more species, higher-order interactions, which recent theory suggests can…
We propose a generic model of eco-systems, with a {\it hierarchical} food web structure. In our computer simulations we let the eco-system evolve continuously for so long that that we can monitor extinctions as well as speciations over…
The lack of large-scale, continuously evolving empirical data usually limits the study of networks to the analysis of snapshots in time. This approach has been used for verification of network evolution mechanisms, such as preferential…
Species extinction occurs regularly and unavoidably in ecological systems. The time scales for extinction can broadly vary and inform on the ecosystem's stability. We study the spatio-temporal extinction dynamics of a paradigmatic…