Energy flows and maximum power on an evolutionary ecological network model

Abstract

Energy flows in ecological systems which are determined by the structure of the ecological network influence the evolution of the network itself. The total system energy throughflow as an important indicator of the coevolution of network and flows in the ecosystem can be maximized spontaneously according to the maximum power principle. This principle should be thought as an emergent and evolutionary property of the system. To address the problem of how this principle functioning theoretically, a simple model that exhibits the long term evolution of the ecological network determined by the fast dynamics of the energy flows was presented. Maximum power with the diffusion in the phenotype space was investigated in various settings. Accordingly, the conclusion that the total energy throughflow on the network and the diversity are always positive correlated was drawn. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.