Throughflow centrality reveals important species in ecosystems and environmental impacts of shrimp trawling in Core Sound, NC
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
Centrality is a common tool for characterizing node importance in
network science, but it is rarely used in ecology. Here, I introduce
throughflow centrality as a global indicator of node importance for
the energy-matter flow dynamics ON networks. I then present two
ecological applications. First, I characterize the distribution of throughflow centrality in 45 empirically-based trophic ecosystem models. Consistent with theoretical expectations, this analysis shows that a small fraction of the system components (<20%) tend to be responsible for the majority of the system activity (>80%). Second, I use throughflow centrality to characterize the ecosystem impacts of
shrimp trawling in Core Sound, NC. This highlights the wide ranging impacts of the fishing activity, not all of which are negative.
