Decoding the interaction mediators from landscape-induced spatial patterns

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Colombo, E. H., Defaveri, L., Anteneodo, C.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Colombo, E. H.
Defaveri, L.
Anteneodo, C.
author_facet Colombo, E. H.
Defaveri, L.
Anteneodo, C.
contents Interactions between organisms are mediated by an intricate network of physico-chemical substances and other organisms. Understanding the dynamics of mediators and how they shape the population spatial distribution is key to predict ecological outcomes and how they would be transformed by changes in environmental constraints. However, due to the inherent complexity involved, this task is often unfeasible, from the empirical and theoretical perspectives. In this paper, we make progress in addressing this central issue, creating a bridge that provides a two-way connection between the features of the ensemble of underlying mediators and the wrinkles in the population density induced by a landscape defect (or spatial perturbation). The bridge is constructed by applying the Feynman-Vernon decomposition, which disentangles the influences among the focal population and the mediators in a compact way. This is achieved though an interaction kernel, which effectively incorporates the mediators' degrees of freedom, explaining the emergence of nonlocal influence between individuals, an ad hoc assumption in modeling population dynamics. Concrete examples are worked out and reveal the complexity behind a possible top-down inference procedure.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_13551
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Decoding the interaction mediators from landscape-induced spatial patterns
Colombo, E. H.
Defaveri, L.
Anteneodo, C.
Populations and Evolution
Statistical Mechanics
Interactions between organisms are mediated by an intricate network of physico-chemical substances and other organisms. Understanding the dynamics of mediators and how they shape the population spatial distribution is key to predict ecological outcomes and how they would be transformed by changes in environmental constraints. However, due to the inherent complexity involved, this task is often unfeasible, from the empirical and theoretical perspectives. In this paper, we make progress in addressing this central issue, creating a bridge that provides a two-way connection between the features of the ensemble of underlying mediators and the wrinkles in the population density induced by a landscape defect (or spatial perturbation). The bridge is constructed by applying the Feynman-Vernon decomposition, which disentangles the influences among the focal population and the mediators in a compact way. This is achieved though an interaction kernel, which effectively incorporates the mediators' degrees of freedom, explaining the emergence of nonlocal influence between individuals, an ad hoc assumption in modeling population dynamics. Concrete examples are worked out and reveal the complexity behind a possible top-down inference procedure.
title Decoding the interaction mediators from landscape-induced spatial patterns
topic Populations and Evolution
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13551