Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 10: Nonlinear Stochastic Systems

DY 10.2: Talk

Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 09:45–10:00, ZEU 160

Statistical classification of small microbial food webs — •Fanny Groll and Alexander Altland — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Germany

We identify classes of food webs with regard to their stability and species diversity. Food webs are characterised by the topology of their inter-species relations, e.g. feeding on products of metabolism of another species or competition on nutrients or via a common predator.

To gain insight into these structures we pursue a statistical approach: the starting point is the numerical implementation of food webs with given inter-species network dependence. Each species is defined by parameters determining its attributes. A whole distribution of parameter combinations is then randomly generated within biologically sensible bounds, and tested according to its temporal evolution. Individual systems evolve for some time in simulations and the outcome is monitored. Specifically, we deduce probabilities for the survival of a given number of species over distributions of network parameters at fixed network topology.