Abstract
BackgroundIn ecological networks, natural communities are studied from a complex systems perspective by representing interactions among species within them in the form of a graph, which is in turn analysed using mathematical tools. Topological features encountered in complex networks have been proved to provide the systems they represent with interesting attributes such as robustness and stability, which in ecological systems translates into the ability of communities to resist perturbations of different kinds. A focus of research in community ecology is on understanding the mechanisms by which these complex networks of interactions among species in a community arise. We employ an agent-based approach to model ecological processes operating at the species' interaction level for the study of the emergence of organisation in ecological networks.ResultsWe have designed protocols of interaction among agents in a multi-agent system based on ecological processes occurring at the interaction level between species in plant-animal mutualistic communities. Interaction models for agents coordination thus engineered facilitate the emergence of network features such as those found in ecological networks of interacting species, in our artificial societies of agents.ConclusionsAgent based models developed in this way facilitate the automation of the design an execution of simulation experiments that allow for the exploration of diverse behavioural mechanisms believed to be responsible for community organisation in ecological communities. This automated way of conducting experiments empowers the study of ecological networks by exploiting the expressive power of interaction models specification in agent systems.
Highlights
In ecological networks, natural communities are studied from a complex systems perspective by representing interactions among species within them in the form of a graph, which is in turn analysed using mathematical tools
Relationships among pairs of agents arose with different strengths and with different configurations
The experiments that can be performed using this approach are based on an agent-based model that is able to obtain the network of interactions among simulated species in an artificial community that interact based on a protocol of interaction which relies heavily upon ecological theory for the representation of the relationships among species as they occur in real communities
Summary
Natural communities are studied from a complex systems perspective by representing interactions among species within them in the form of a graph, which is in turn analysed using mathematical tools. Complex Systems Complex systems of interacting entities are ubiquitous in nature and the artificial world, ranging from networks of interacting computers in cyberspace, different types of transportation networks such as airports and the links connecting them, power grids that provide cities with electricity, human interactions of different kinds such as researchers and their collaborations; to the highly organised webs of interactions that we find in biological systems such as protein, gene, cell, and neural networks, and the relationships found in real communities in a given ecosystem, where the interacting species, each of them with its own genetic, phylogenetic, life-history, and evolutionary background come together in a particular habitat and form complex but organised collections of interacting entities All of these are examples of complex systems, where the system-level organisation emerges as a consequence of the coupled interactions amongst their component parts rather than being exerted by some control mechanism operating at the level of the system. Ecological Interactions Animal behaviour and interactions comprise a subject of study that has historically received much attention in the field of ecology [3,4,5,6], because of the wide set of different types of interactions that can occur among species and because these interactions are believed to account for the huge biodiversity encountered in our planet and for the organisation of communities within the very dissimilar collection of ecosystems found on Earth
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