Structure Comparison of Binary and Weighted Niche-Overlap Graphs

Abstract

Abstract. In ecological networks, niche-overlap graphs are considered as complex systems. They represent the competition between two predators that share common resources. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the structural properties of these graphs considered as weighted networks and compare their measures with the ones calculated for the binary networks. To conduct this study, we select four classical network measures : the degree of nodes, the clustering coefficient, the assortativity, and the betweenness centrality. These measures were used to analyse different type of networks such as social networks, biological networks, world wide web, etc. Interestingly, we identify significant differences between the structure of the binary and the weighted niche-overlap graphs. This study indicates that weight information reveals different features that may provide other implications on the dynamics of these networks.

Structural Network Properties of Niche-Overlap Graphs

“…This indicates that species in these networks tend to be randomly linked, which goes in the same direction of a previous study where these networks were found to follow a single scale degree distribution [17].…”

“…Two species are linked if they share at least one prey. In this paper, we extended the work introduced in [17] where it was shown that a collection of 15 niche-overlap graphs do not exhibit « small world » nor « scale-free » properties. We moreover compared their structure with random niche-overlap graphs to acquire a better comprehension of these patterns.…”