98th ESA Annual Meeting (August 4 -- 9, 2013)

August 03 - 09, 2013

IGN 13

Ecological Analysis Using Network Science and Graph Theory

The complex, interconnected structure and function of ecological systems is apparent in their countless direct and indirect pathways of energy (e.g., a food web), mass (e.g., a movement corridor), and information (e.g., a social network). This Ignite ESA Session unites multiple fields of ecology through the lens of a single, rapidly-evolving, analytical framework: network analysis. With foundations in mathematics, economics, and computational science, the field of network analysis is rapidly developing to examine webs of interaction as diverse as the internet, neural networks, and scientific citations. Scientists have formally and informally applied network theory to ecological datasets for decades, but only in recent years have generic computational tools become sufficient for network analysis to emerge as a key technique for ecological investigation. This session examines basic and applied ecological problems in both naturally-formed and anthropogenically-altered networks of interactions. In particular, diverse examples are presented from disease transfer, social behavior, pollination, food webs, population dynamics, and species migration. By focusing on methodology, rather than system-specific conclusions, we are able to share information across a wide range of disciplines and look for emergent solutions to network-related questions.