50 research outputs found
Spatial network surrogates for disentangling complex system structure from spatial embedding of nodes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS MW and RVD have been supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) via the Young Investigators Group CoSy-CC2 (grant no. 01LN1306A). JFD thanks the Stordalen Foundation and BMBF (project GLUES) for financial support. JK acknowledges the IRTG 1740 funded by DFG and FAPESP. MT Gastner is acknowledged for providing his data on the airline, interstate, and Internet network. P Menck thankfully provided his data on the Scandinavian power grid. We thank S Willner on behalf of the entire zeean team for providing the data on the world trade network. All computations have been performed using the Python package pyunicorn [41] that is available at https://github.com/pik-copan/pyunicorn.Peer reviewedPreprin
Optimization of coupling and global collapse in diffusively coupled socio-ecological resource exploitation networks
Single- and multi-layer complex networks have been proven as a powerful tool
to study the dynamics within social, technological,or natural systems. An often
observed common goal there is to optimize these systems for specific purposes
by minimizing certain costs while maximizing a desired output. Acknowledging
that especially real-world systems from the coupled socio-ecological realm are
highly intertwined this work exemplifies that in such systems the optimization
of a certain subsystem, e.g., to increase the resilience against external
pressure in an ecological network, may unexpectedly diminish the stability of
the whole coupled system. For this purpose we utilize an adaptation of a
previously proposed conceptual bilayer network model composed of an ecological
network of diffusively coupled resources co-evolving with a social network of
interacting agents that harvest these resources and learn each other's
strategies depending on individual success. We derive an optimal coupling
strength that prevents a collapse in as many resources as possible if one
assumes that the agents' strategies remain constant over time. However, we then
show that if agents socially learn and adapt strategies according to their
neighbors' success, this optimal coupling strength is revealed to be a critical
parameter above which the probability for a global collapse in terms of
irreversibly depleted resources is high -- an effect that we denote the tragedy
of the optimizer. We thus find that measures which stabilize the dynamics
within a certain part of a larger co-evolutionary system may unexpectedly cause
the emergence of novel undesired globally stable states. Our results therefore
underline the importance of holistic approaches for managing socio-ecological
systems because stabilizing effects which focus on single subsystems may be
counter-beneficial for the system as a whole
Sustainable use of renewable resources in a stylized social–ecological network model under heterogeneous resource distribution
Human societies depend on the resources ecosystems provide. Particularly since the last century,
human activities have transformed the relationship between nature and society at a global scale. We study this
coevolutionary relationship by utilizing a stylized model of private resource use and social learning on an adaptive
network. The latter process is based on two social key dynamics beyond economic paradigms: boundedly
rational imitation of resource use strategies and homophily in the formation of social network ties. The private
and logistically growing resources are harvested with either a sustainable (small) or non-sustainable (large) effort.
We show that these social processes can have a profound influence on the environmental state, such as
determining whether the private renewable resources collapse from overuse or not. Additionally, we demonstrate
that heterogeneously distributed regional resource capacities shift the critical social parameters where this
resource extraction system collapses. We make these points to argue that, in more advanced coevolutionary
models of the planetary social–ecological system, such socio-cultural phenomena as well as regional resource
heterogeneities should receive attention in addition to the processes represented in established Earth system and
integrated assessment model
A network-based microfoundation of Granovetter's threshold model for social tipping
Social tipping, where minorities trigger larger populations to engage in
collective action, has been suggested as one key aspect in addressing
contemporary global challenges. Here, we refine Granovetter's widely
acknowledged theoretical threshold model of collective behavior as a numerical
modelling tool for understanding social tipping processes and resolve issues
that so far have hindered such applications. Based on real-world observations
and social movement theory, we group the population into certain or potential
actors, such that -- in contrast to its original formulation -- the model
predicts non-trivial final shares of acting individuals. Then, we use a network
cascade model to explain and analytically derive that previously hypothesized
broad threshold distributions emerge if individuals become active via social
interaction. Thus, through intuitive parameters and low dimensionality our
refined model is adaptable to explain the likelihood of engaging in collective
behavior where social tipping like processes emerge as saddle-node bifurcations
and hysteresis
Macroscopic description of complex adaptive networks co-evolving with dynamic node states
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was carried out within the framework of PIK’s COPAN project. M.W. was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Science and Education via the BMBF Young Investigators Group CoSy-CC2 (Grant No. 01LN1306A). J.F.D. and W.L. acknowledge funding from the Stordalen Foundation (Norway) via the PB.net initiative and BMBF (project GLUES) and J.K. acknowledges the IRTG 1740 funded by Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) (Germany) and FAPESP. We thank R. V. Donner for helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript and R. Grzondziel and C. Linstead for help with the IBM iDataPlex Cluster at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Impact of temperature and precipitation extremes on the flowering dates of four German wildlife shrub species
Ongoing climate change is known to cause an increase in the frequency and amplitude of local temperature and precipitation extremes in many regions of the Earth. While gradual changes in the climatological conditions have already been shown to strongly influence plant flowering dates, the question arises if and how extremes specifically impact the timing of this important phenological phase. Studying this question calls for the application of statistical methods that are tailored to the specific properties of event time series. Here, we employ event coincidence analysis, a novel statistical tool that allows assessing whether or not two types of events exhibit similar sequences of occurrences in order to systematically quantify simultaneities between meteorological extremes and the timing of the flowering of four shrub species across Germany. Our study confirms previous findings of experimental studies by highlighting the impact of early spring temperatures on the flowering of the investigated plants. However, previous studies solely based on correlation analysis do not allow deriving explicit estimates of the strength of such interdependencies without further assumptions, a gap that is closed by our analysis. In addition to direct impacts of extremely warm and cold spring temperatures, our analysis reveals statistically significant indications of an influence of temperature extremes in the autumn preceding the flowering