iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Both approaches identify important parts of food webs but through different perspectives: one (Juliane) by looking at the network as a whole and the other (Melanie) by considering it's small building blocks.

100

Melanie gave a talk on her paper Functional Motifs in Food Webs and Networks (see previous post: bsky.app/profile/bion...), in which she showed how reactivity can be used to determine the influence of subgraphs on system behavior.

100

Juliane had a poster about her work on how to identify key species in a food web, including a dynamic predator-prey system.

100

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Great work! Last week Juliane Entzian (@j-entz.bsky.social) and Melanie Habermann (@mhab.bsky.social) represented our group at the Topic 6 Symposium 2026 at GEOMAR. Topic 6 is one branch of the Helmholtz research area 'Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future' with focus on Marine and Polar Life.

141

Paper Alert! New paper out together with Timo Metz (@timometz.bsky.social), Jan Timo Bachmann and Nico Blüthgen.

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Paper alert! Very proud to announce, that our PhD student Tim (@timmauch.bsky.social) got his first paper published. He introduces a meta-community opinion model via a reaction-diffusion system on networks. 1/3

150

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Mind the gap! Next stop: Biodiversity Theory Our working group just digitized our research landscape using a classic London Tube map design. Every line is a team member; every station is a core topic or application we tackle. Check it out and see where our work interconnects!

Table with each station name in alphabetical order. For each station or topic we are working on is a list with the initials of the group member you can reach out to. Unfortunately, the list is too long to post it here in the alt text, but if you have questions and want to reach out, the DMs are open.
Check out the map below to see how our ideas interconnect!

1134

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Paper alert! Did you ever think that counting the many different structures you can get from the chemical composition is hard? We've got the paper that shows you how to do it. Here's the newest publication by Rana Shojaei (@ranashj.bsky.social) and Thilo Gross (@thilogross.bsky.social).

041

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Paper alert! Great use of generalized modeling to learn about bacteria. It's Jana's (@janamassing.bsky.social) final paper from her time in our group. Highly recommended!

020

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

If you're at dpg today: Our PhD student Tim Mauch (@timmauch.bsky.social) will give his talk about "Jacobian Reconstruction from Time-Series of an Opinion Dynamical Network Model and its Applicability as an Early Warning Signal for Tipping Points" 🕧 12:30 PM 📌 GÖR/0226

051

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

At dpg this week? Then you don't want to miss Bernd Fernengel's talk about "Linear Dynamics on Infinite Networks". 11:45 AM, ZEU/0118

031

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Paper alert! Our study about functional motifs is out in PNAS. We use food webs as an example to discuss how small subgraphs drive the dynamics in complex systems. While motifs that determine overall stability are rare, when it comes to reactivity, we show that small groups dominate system behavior.

0155

... I’m absolutely grateful for the opportunity to extensively dive into network analysis here, and for finding an application in biodiversity and food web research that contributes to the wide-ranging IMAPP project." 4/5

... such evidence and facts, I started studying Mathematics in Leipzig with a focus on PDEs, continued giving attention to numerics/approximations during my PhD in Hamburg and finally joined the Biodiversity Theory group at HIFMB as a PostDoc. ... 3/5

100

... without having to deal with the (often pretty complicated) implementation? I barely think so. Still, evidence-based decisions are crucial when it comes to successful implementation. In order to be able to explore, improve, and further develop methods and models that provide ... 2/5

100

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Time to introduce a new group member: Juliane Entzian joined us as a new postdoc! "Don’t we all want to improve the world for at least just a tiny bit? And is there a more comfortable way in doing so than just telling decision-makers what should be done – ... 1/5

150

Don't miss Tom Clegg's (@cleggtom.bsky.social) poster today at EcoNet 2025 with the title "Cross-feeding networks create tipping points in microbiome diversity" where he tries to answer the question how biodiversity of microbiomes emerges from interactions between populations.

030

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

If you’re attending EcoNet 2025, don’t miss Jordan Gault’s (@jagault.bsky.social) poster presentation: “Dissimilarity analysis based on diffusion maps.” His work highlights how diffusion maps, a manifold learning approach, provide powerful new tools to track community change across space and time.

040

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

If you're at CCS 2025 this week: Tues, Sep 2nd, 12:15 pm, Room 15, Melanie (@mhab.bsky.social) will present her work on functional motifs in foodwebs and networks. Same day, Room 14, Tim (@timmauch.bsky.social) talks about diffusion-driven pattern formation in an opinion dynamical network model.

Using a master stability function approach, we show conditions where opinions distribute heterogeneously across the network, resulting in communities where the majority of agents hold the minority opinion. These regions can be seen as local hubs where minority views can thrive and develop. 5/5

The figure shows the opinion propagation on a random geometric graph at three different time steps. You can see the same network at time step 0, 283 and 1000. Each network consists of 50 nodes with a distance threshold value of 0.2.
Node colors and radius represent the opinion composition and total abundance per node, respectively, with blue corresponding to opinion X and orange corresponding to opinion Y. The larger the nodes, the higher the abundance. Some nodes are highlighted with a gray shading, indicating where the local majority opinion is switched in favor of the global minority opinion (in this case X attains a higher local abundance than Y).
Over time a pattern forms where Y is the majority opinion but the network is divided into two regions. The lower part of the network at time step 1000 is dominated by nodes with opinion Y with very high abundances (indicated by the larger node size), while the upper part is dominated by those with opinion X with low abundances (smaller nodes). The two parts of the network are only connected by a single link between one node with local majority Y and one with local majority X.

These dynamics lead to bistable conditions where either one of the two opinions can be dominant across all communities. Tipping points can lead to an abrupt switch of the dominant opinion. However, the minority opinion is not doomed totally... 4/5

One parameter bifurcation diagram depending on parameter alpha with a fixed beta and gamma.
The y-axis shows the stable state, marked with a X star and has a range from zero to one with increments of 0.2.
The x-axis shows alpha, also with a range from zero to one, in increments of 0.25. We see a diagram with a graph that is formed like a flipped S. The area is divided into two different zones. In the white areas the system is monostable and the light orange area marks the parameter range where the system is bi-stable. The two regions are separated by two saddle-node bifurcations. One jump from one stable state into the other is marked by a red dot (for the bifurcation point) and a red arrow (indicating the shift from one stable state into the other).
On the bottom of the plot is a beta at 0.55 with two arrows. One arrow points to the right with the text "X inferior" above it. The other arrow points left and is marked with "X superior".

We build a network model where nodes are communities of interacting agents with two competing opinions, and links represent avenues of migration. Agents can either flip their opinion spontaneously, change their opinion under the influence of others or leave to a more like-minded community. 3/5

Overview of the model mechanisms.
The figure shows three different levels and explains what is going on. The first is the individual level that shows the individual agents. Level two shows a community occupied by multiple agents. These communities form a network in level three, where the individual nodes are connected by diffusion and each node is coloured as a pie diagram that shows the percentage of nodes with one of two opinions the agents (individuals) can have: X or Y. Nodes with opinion X are coloured blue, those with opinion Y are coloured in orange.
The individual agents live in a community. They populate nodes of a complex network and are coupled by diffusion.
Opinion formation on each node is governed by two processes that are further explained in two parts marked with a roman 1 and 2. Roman 1 shows spontaneous flipping of opinions. A node with opinion X can change opinion to Y with a rate of alpha, while the reverse happens with a rate of beta.
Roman 2 shows opinion adjustment through the influence of others. If one node in a group of three is the only one with opinion X, it changes to Y with a rate of gamma.

Opinions form the basis of how individuals make decisions. We change our opinions through interactions with others along the complex social networks that structure societies. In our paper we ask how these interaction networks shape opinion formation. 2/5

... Using field data and theoretical models I want to answer: How will cell size of unicellular plankton develop in a future ocean?" Find out more about him here: biond.org/people/profi... hifmb.de/people/fabia... 5/5

biond.org

BioND | Fabian Moye

000

... The focus of my postdoc is on genome size and cell size of unicellular marine plankton within environmental and evolutionary constraints that may form tipping points in biodiversity. Cell size is a major trait that links individuell fitness with ecosystem function. ... 4/5

100

... to ecology (biodiversity). Sources, sinks and transformation of marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) control the storage of carbon in the ocean for thousands of years. During my PhD, I used mass spectrometry and data science ... 2/5

100

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Meet our group members! Next one up is Fabian Moye: "Hi, I am Fabian, a postdoc in the Biodiversity Theory group at HIFMB and the Eco-Evolutionary Genomics group at AWI, Bremerhaven. I am interested in the formation, fate and function of diversity from chemistry (chemodiversity) ... 1/5

151

Another talk at #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social you shouldn't miss: Thilo Gross @thilogross.bsky.social will give a talk in the Ecological Networks session at 12:45 pm today. 📄Functional Motifs in Food Webs and Networks 📌0.04 Brussels

241

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

At #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social today and searching for something to do in the lunch break? Then good news! Why not take a look at Rana Shojaei's ( @ranashj.bsky.social ) poster in the lobby? 📄Counting Molecular Structures with Multi-variate Generating Functions 📌Biology, poster no. 20

031

BioND Lab @biondlab.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

If you're at #NetSci2025 @netsciconf.bsky.social today, don't miss the talk by Thomas Clegg @cleggtom.bsky.social in the Biological Networks session at 11:30 am! 📄: Cross-feeding Creates Tipping Points in Microbiome Diversity 📌: 0.04 Brussels

141

Reposted by BioND Lab

Thilo Gross @thilogross.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Hey, new paper by @cleggtom.bsky.social and me is just out in @pnas.org. This combines a lot of things that start with B: Biodiversity, Bipartite Networks, Bifurcations, Bacteria, ... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... And yes, I know, Fig 1 looks like one of 'those' papers but please read on ...

pnas.org

Cross-feeding creates tipping points in microbiome diversity | PNAS

A key unresolved question in microbial ecology is how the extraordinary diversity of microbiomes emerges from the interactions among their many fun...

27019

... of symbionts within a single colony to quantifying the robustness of the mutualistic network in a spatial context. When I'm not at work I'm typically biking and/or birding." More about Jordan: biond.org/people/profi... Find all publications via: scholar.google.com/citations?hl... 12/12

Currently, I am working on understanding how the network of interactions between scleractinian corals and their algal symbionts shape community disassembly and reassembly at local to regional spatial scales. This involves a variety of approaches, from modeling the population dynamics ... 11/12

Compositional measurements from species assemblages define a high dimensional dataspace in which the data can form complex structures, termed manifolds. Comparing assemblages in this dataspace is dif...

... to quantify the dimensions of compositional variation in species assemblages, even at very large scales where many assemblages may share no species in common. (doi.org/10.1111/oik....). ... 10/12

doi.org

... in the composition of species assemblages. Diffusion maps leverage the mathematics of a diffusion process on a network to find and characterize the structure of high-dimensional data. Applying this to measures of compositional dissimilarity, it was found that diffusion maps can be used ... 9/12

... I took a brief detour from the reefs for my PhD at the University of Oldenburg. My PhD research involved developing and applying novel methods for quantifying biodiversity change at a range of scales. For example, I investigated the novel use of diffusion maps to quantify changes ... 8/12

120

Lineage-specific variation in the evolutionary stability of coral photosymbiosis

... to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the trait, it was found that photosymbiosis is a remarkably stable trait, rarely showing evidence of reversion to a non-symbiotic lifestyle even among corals that acquire symbionts from the environment each generation (doi.org/10.1126/scia...) .. 7/12

doi.org

The evolutionary stability of photosymbiosis differs among lineages of reef-building corals.

While in Guam, I also completed my master's degree at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory. My work focused on understanding the evolutionary patterns of gain and loss of photosymbiosis in scleractinian corals. Using both molecular and supertree phylogenies 6/12

Successive bleaching events cause mass coral mortality in Guam, Micronesia - Coral Reefs

... and scientific diver with the long-term reef monitoring program in Guam. One major component of my work was helping to document the impact of large-scale bleaching events on the island's reefs (doi.org/10.1007/s003...). ... 5/12

doi.org

The reefs of Guam, a high island in the Western Pacific, were impacted by an unprecedented succession of extreme environmental events beginning in 2013. Elevated SSTs induced severe island-wide bleach...

... This diversity of symbiotic strategies makes scleractinian corals an ideal group to link the ecology of mutualism to patterns at broader spatial and temporal scales. Most of my work and research has involved coral reefs in one way or another. From 2012 to 2020, I was a field biologist ... 4/12

120

... Nearly half of the ~1700 species of scleractinian corals are photosymbiotic, and they display a range of mutualistic strategies - from obligate to facultative dependence, from horizontal acquisition of symbionts to vertical transmission, and from specialist to generalist pairings. ... 3/12