Understanding and characterizing nestedness in mutualistic bipartite networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dynamical model for mutualistic ecological networks and proposes a new nestedness coefficient that better captures the robustness and organization of these systems.

Contribution

A novel dynamical model and a nestedness coefficient that improves measurement of network organization and robustness in mutualistic bipartite systems.

Findings

The nestedness coefficient correlates with system robustness.

The model successfully describes the organization of ecological mutualistic networks.

The new measure distinguishes differences in organization between guilds.

Abstract

In this work we present a dynamical model that succesfully describes the organization of mutualistic ecological systems. The main characteristic of these systems is the nested structure of the bipartite adjacency matrix describing their interactions. We introduce a nestedness coefficient, as an alternative to the Atmar and Patterson temperature, commonly used to measure the nestedness degree of the network. This coefficient has the advantage of being based on the robustness of the ecological system and it is not only describing the ordering of the bipartite matrix but it is also able to tell the difference, if any, between the degree of organization of each guild.