Department of Ecology &Evolution, University of Chicago. 1101 E. 57th, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Centre for Networks and Collective Behaviour, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath. Claverton Down Bath BA2 7AY United Kingdom.
Nat Commun. 2016 Jun 23;7:12031. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12031.
Networks composed of distinct, densely connected subsystems are called modular. In ecology, it has been posited that a modular organization of species interactions would benefit the dynamical stability of communities, even though evidence supporting this hypothesis is mixed. Here we study the effect of modularity on the local stability of ecological dynamical systems, by presenting new results in random matrix theory, which are obtained using a quaternionic parameterization of the cavity method. Results show that modularity can have moderate stabilizing effects for particular parameter choices, while anti-modularity can greatly destabilize ecological networks.
由不同的、密集连接的子系统组成的网络称为模块化。在生态学中，有人假设物种相互作用的模块化组织将有利于群落的动态稳定性，尽管支持这一假设的证据是混合的。在这里，我们通过使用腔方法的四元数参数化来呈现随机矩阵理论中的新结果，研究了模块化对生态动力学系统局部稳定性的影响。结果表明，对于特定的参数选择，模块化可以产生适度的稳定效果，而反模块化则会极大地破坏生态网络的稳定性。
