Web Page Ranking Algorithm Detects Critical Species In Ecosystems

ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) — Google's algorithm for ranking web-pages can be used to determine which species are critical for sustaining ecosystems. Drs. Stefano Allesina and Mercedes Pascual find that "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs, the complex networks describing who eats whom in an ecosystem.

The researchers, based at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara and at the University of Michigan, therefore adapt Google's PageRank algorithm, which efficiently ranks web-pages according to search criteria, for ecological purposes. Details are published September 4 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

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