PageRank Algorithm Applied To the Food Web

An anonymous reader brings word of a new application for PageRank, Google's link analysis algorithm: monitoring the food web in an ecosystem. A team of researchers found that a modified version of PageRank can predict with great accuracy which species are vital to the existence of others. Quoting: "Every species is embedded in a complex network of relationships with others. A single extinction can cascade into the loss of seemingly unrelated species. Investigating when this might happen using more conventional methods is complicated, as even in simple ecosystems, the number of combinations exceeds the number of atoms in the universe. So, it would be impossible to try them all. Co-author Dr. Stefano Allesina realized he could apply PageRank to the problem when he stumbled across an article in a journal of applied mathematics describing the Google algorithm. 'First of all, we had to reverse the definition of the algorithm. In PageRank, a web page is important if important pages point to it. In our approach, a species is important if it points to important species.'"

Comments

Other uses come to mind as well

[sehlat]

In some respect, an economy can be considered as a sort of ecology. If this research holds up, it would be interesting to do the same sort of analysis to rank the importance of industries and occupations. Which ones are necessary and vital and which ones (MPAA?) can be discarded without harm or even with benefit to the rest of the ecology.

Re:Importance is easy to determine...

[Darkness404]

Well of course, we know that above all things nature simply survives. But we can't know for certain whether they are "important" for it to survive on its own. Especially with the ever-changing nature of the world. If a predator dies will another predictor eaten by the other predator move in? Will the prey multiply like crazy? Its these things that will make the PageRank algorithm useless in biology.

Re:Pagestank

[syousef]

Do you have a point? Or did you just use the mention of the term "Pagerank" to come in here and randomly slag off Google?

Apparently the point - that pagerank stinks and is not something I want to pay attention to if used to rank food - was too subtle for you. I don't know if you're a Google employee or just a run of the mill sock puppet but I did not go into a tirade about Google teh company so stop trolling.