Networks of plants: how to measure similarity in vegetable species.
Despite the common misconception of nearly static organisms, plants do interact continuously with the environment and with each other. It is fair to assume that during their evolution they developed particular features to overcome similar problems and to exploit possibilities from environment. In this paper we introduce various quantitative measures based on recent advancements in complex network theory that allow to measure the effective similarities of various species. By using this approach on the similarity in fruit-typology ecological traits we obtain a clear plant classification in a way similar to traditional taxonomic classification. This result is not trivial, since a similar analysis done on the basis of diaspore morphological properties do not provide any clear parameter to classify plants species. Complex network theory can then be used in order to determine which feature amongst many can be used to distinguish scope and possibly evolution of plants. Future uses of this approach range from functional classification to quantitative determination of plant communities in nature.
IMT School for Advanced Studies, Piazza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca, Italy.
Gianna
G
Vivaldo
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Produzioni Agroalimentari e dell'Ambiente (DISPAA), Viale delle Idee, 30, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino Firenze, Italy.
Elisa
E
Masi
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Produzioni Agroalimentari e dell'Ambiente (DISPAA), Viale delle Idee, 30, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino Firenze, Italy.
Camilla
C
Pandolfi
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Produzioni Agroalimentari e dell'Ambiente (DISPAA), Viale delle Idee, 30, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino Firenze, Italy.
Stefano
S
Mancuso
IMT School for Advanced Studies, Piazza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca, Italy.|London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 35a South St. Mayfair, W1K 2XF London UK.|CNR-Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi (ISC), Roma, Italy.
Guido
G
Caldarelli
D019659:Asteraceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D019607:Brassicaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D029785:Cyperaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D066264:Datasets as Topic; D017753:Ecosystem; D007887:Fabaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D005638:Fruit / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D063148:Plant Dispersal / Q000502:physiology*; D006109:Poaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D027824:Rosaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014675:Vegetables / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*