ArticleNature ecology & evolution2020
Information limitation and the dynamics of coupled ecological systems.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Wild canids and felids differ in their reliance on reused travel routeways.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Embedding information flows within ecological networks.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Slower swimming promotes chemotactic encounters between bacteria and small phytoplankton.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Diverse dynamics in interacting vortices systems through tunable conservative and non-conservative coupling strengths.Communications physics · 2025Article
- Fish couple forecasting with feedback control to chase and capture moving prey.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
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- When are bacteria really gazelles? Comparing patchy ecologies with dimensionless numbers.Ecology letters · 2022Review
- The scent of fear makes sea urchins go ballistic.Movement ecology · 2021Article
- Optimal transportation theory for species interaction networks.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Sperm chemotaxis in marine species is optimal at physiological flow rates according theory of filament surfing.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- Life in fluctuating environments.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Fast behavioral feedbacks make ecosystems sensitive to pace and not just magnitude of anthropogenic environmental change.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Decoding collective communications using information theory tools.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2020Article
- Beyond an ecological ideal gas law.Nature ecology & evolution · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The dynamics of large ecological systems result from vast numbers of interactions between individual organisms. Here, we develop mathematical theory to show that the rate of such interactions is inherently limited by the ability of organisms to gain information about one another. This phenomenon, which we call 'information limitation', is likely to be widespread in real ecological systems and can dictate both the rates of ecological interactions and long-run dynamics of interacting populations. We show how information limitation leads to sigmoid interaction rate functions that can stabilize antagonistic interactions and destabilize mutualistic ones; as a species or type becomes rare, information on its whereabouts also becomes rare, weakening coupling with consumers, pathogens and mutualists. This can facilitate persistence of consumer-resource systems, alter the course of pathogen infections within a host and enhance the rates of oceanic productivity and carbon export. Our findings may shed light on phenomena in many living systems where information drives interactions.
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