Why Nestedness in Mutualistic Networks?

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the nested organization of mutualistic systems and their robustness against the extinction of species. We establish that a nested pattern of contacts is the best possible one as far as robustness is concerned, but only when the least linked species have the greater probability of becoming extinct. We introduce a coefficient that provides a quantitative measure of the robustness of a mutualistic system.

Journal of Theoretical Biology (Accepted, 2007)

References in corpus (4)

• Emergence of scaling in random networks
• Statistical mechanics of complex networks
• Resilience of the Internet to random breakdowns
• Analysis and Assembling of Network Structure in Mutualistic Systems

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