Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks

Details Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks

2011-10-03

arxiv.org/abs/1110.0376v1

Physics

Physics and Society

In F. Reed-Tsochas and N. Johnson (eds.) Complex Systems and Interdisciplinary Sciences. London: World Scientific Publishing (

Scientific paper

Previous work has shown that species interacting in an ecosystem and actors transacting in an economic context may have notable similarities in behavior. However, the specific mechanism that may underlie similarities in nature and human systems has not been analyzed. Building on stochastic food-web models, we propose a parsimonious bipartite-cooperation model that reproduces the key features of mutualistic networks - degree distribution, nestedness and modularity -- for both ecological networks and socio-economic networks. Our analysis uses two diverse networks. Mutually-beneficial interactions between plants and their pollinators, and cooperative economic exchanges between designers and their contractors. We find that these mutualistic networks share a key hierarchical ordering of their members, along with an exponential constraint in the number and type of partners they can cooperate with. We use our model to show that slight changes in the interaction constraints can produce either extremely nested or random structures, revealing that these constraints play a key role in the evolution of mutualistic networks. This could also encourage a new systematic approach to study the functional and structural properties of networks. The surprising correspondence across mutualistic networks suggests their broadly representativeness and their potential role in the productive organization of exchange systems, both ecological and social.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Common Organizing Mechanisms in Ecological and Socio-economic Networks will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-271320