From thePageRank de Google, the set ofalgorithmsUsed to numerically calculate the relevance of websites, the researchers created a surprisingly accurate model to calculate interactions within the same food chain.
According to scientists, species are integrated into a complex network of food relationships (Who eats who) with the rest, sothe extinction of a single variety could cause the disappearance of many other species. For example, the blue butterfly became endangered at the moment when the base of its diet, a class of ant, began to disappear. Determining what these food relationships are between species is a fundamental step when it comes to protecting them, according to the researchers in an article in the journalPLoS Computational Biology.
Yes with himPageRankFrom Google, a website gets a higher score the more web pages “point” to it, applying the algorithm to the species it results that an organism is considered more important (it has a higher “ranking”) when it serves as food to a greater number of important species. The result is aclassification of species based on the damage that their hypothetical extinction would cause in the ecosystemwhere they live, allowing conservationists to set priorities to avoid biodiversity loss. According to the ecologist Stefano Allesina, the study represents a new approach since from now on “what we have to bear in mind is that the species are not independent: they are immersed in a network of multi-species interactions”.
