Synthesizing and analyzing complex ecological networks with ecoinformatics

• Neo Martinez

Abstract
As research on food webs and other complex ecological networks advance, the difficulty of accessing increasingly abundant information about these networks forms a greater impediment to understanding their structure and dynamics. Beyond access, there is also a greater need to increase the ease and sophistication of analyzing these networks once the information is obtained. Fortunately, the advances in general network science, especially those in biological networks, and associated informatics provide many rich opportunities to increase our ability to synthesize and analyze information describing ecological networks. During an NCEAS sabbatical, I will focus on using these opportunities, especially ecoinformatic activities based at NCEAS, to increase data availability and analytical tools available for the study of ecological networks. While increasing scientists' ability to conduct such research, I will also use these enhanced abilities to study ecological networks with an emphasis on their structural evolution over deep time and the ecosystem consequences of species loss and invasions. These activities are designed to answer my central research questions, "How do ecological networks govern the function of complex ecosystems?"