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Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The ambiguity of nestedness under soft and hard constraints
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Matteo Bruno
  • Fabio Saracco
  • Claudio Tessone
  • Diego Garlaschelli
  • Guido Caldarelli
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Scientific Reports
Publisher Nature Publishing Group
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 2045-2322
Volume 10
Number 1
Page Range 19903
Date 2020
Abstract Text Many real networks feature the property of nestedness, i.e. the neighbours of nodes with a few connections are hierarchically nested within the neighbours of nodes with more connections. Despite the abstract simplicity of this notion, various mathematical definitions of nestedness have been proposed, sometimes giving contrasting results. Moreover, there is an ongoing debate on the statistical significance of nestedness, since random networks where the number of connections (degree) of each node is fixed to its empirical value are typically as nested as real ones. By using only ergodic and unbiased null models, we propose a clarification that exploits the recent finding that random networks where the degrees are enforced as hard constraints (microcanonical ensembles) are thermodynamically different from random networks where the degrees are enforced as soft constraints (canonical ensembles). Indeed, alternative definitions of nestedness can be negatively correlated in the microcanonical one, while being positively correlated in the canonical one. This result disentangles distinct notions of nestedness captured by different metrics and highlights the importance of making a principled choice between hard and soft constraints in null models of ecological networks.
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Digital Object Identifier 10.1038/s41598-020-76300-1
Other Identification Number merlin-id:20353
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