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Empirical complex systems can be characterized not only by pairwise interactions, but also by higher-order (group) interactions influencing collective phenomena, from metabolic reactions to epidemics. Nevertheless, higher-order networks'…
Competition for available resources is natural amongst coexisting species, and the fittest contenders dominate over the rest in evolution. The dynamics of this selection is studied using a simple linear model. It has similarities to…
The simulation of large-scale classical systems in exponentially small space on quantum computers has gained attention. The prior work demonstrated that a quantum algorithm offers an exponential speedup over any classical algorithm in…
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics has long been an area of substantial interest to ecologists because most fundamental biological processes, such as protein synthesis and respiration, are inherently energy-consuming. Microbial communities are…
As early indicated by Charles Darwin, languages behave and change very much like living species. They display high diversity, differentiate in space and time, emerge and disappear. A large body of literature has explored the role of…
What determines whether an organism or collective will survive under particular conditions? This question is asked across the life sciences when determining adaptive fit, developing efficacious treatments for diseases, and assessing the…
Living systems are typically characterized by irreversible processes. A condition equivalent to the reversibility is the detailed balance, whose absence is an obstacle for analytically solving ecological models. We revisit a promising model…
Complexity science offers a wide range of measures for quantifying unpredictability, structure, and information. Yet, a systematic conceptual organization of these measures is still missing. We present a unified framework that locates…
Local coexistence of species in large ecosystems is traditionally explained within the broad framework of niche theory. However, its rationale hardly justifies rich biodiversity observed in nearly homogeneous environments. Here we consider…
A primary motivation for our research in digital ecosystems is the desire to exploit the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems. Ecosystems are thought to be robust, scalable architectures that can automatically solve complex,…
Current mathematical frameworks for predicting the flux state and macromolecular composition of the cell do not rely on thermodynamic constraints to determine the spontaneous direction of reactions. These predictions may be biologically…
This article proposes a fundamental methodological shift in the modelling of policy interventions for sustainability transitions in order to account for complexity (e.g. self-reinforcing mechanism arising from multi-agent interactions) and…
We present new theoretical and empirical results on the probability distributions of species persistence times in natural ecosystems. Persistence times, defined as the timespans occurring between species' colonization and local extinction…
Microorganisms live in environments that inevitably fluctuate between mild and harsh conditions. As harsh conditions may cause extinctions, the rate at which fluctuations occur can shape microbial communities and their diversity, but we…
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…
In order to make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively evident) definition…
Single- and multi-layer complex networks have been proven as a powerful tool to study the dynamics within social, technological,or natural systems. An often observed common goal there is to optimize these systems for specific purposes by…
We explain how hierarchical organization of biological systems emerges naturally during evolution, through a transition in the units of individuality. We will show how these transitions are the result of competing selective forces operating…
Evolutionary and ecosystem dynamics are often treated as different processes --operating at separate timescales-- even if evidence reveals that rapid evolutionary changes can feed back into ecological interactions. A recent long-term field…
Phase separation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatial organization inside biological cells. However, despite the clear relevance to virtually all physiological functions, we understand surprisingly little about what phases…