Miguel Lurgi
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Visit our research group's web page: Ecological Networks and Global Change
Interests
My main research interests are focused on: (i) the understanding of the mechanisms behind the emergence of structure in ecological networks of different kinds, primarily food webs, plant-pollinator and host-symbiont networks; (ii) the study of the assembly and disassembly dynamics of ecological networks, particularly how relevant is evolution and the emergence of novelty for these processes; and (iii) the stability of this kind of networks, how to measure it and how this stability is related to the network structure and dynamics. All this in the context of environmental change and how different components of this change (e.g. climate change, habitat loss, species invasions) affect the structure of the interactions network and ultimately the dynamics of the system and the species populations, and the ecosystem functioning.
From a theoretical perspective I tackle these problems through an individual (agent) based, spatially explicit simulation approach. Because evolutionary change occurs at the level of the individual, this scale is relevant for the kind of problems mentioned above; also, interactions in real ecosystem ultimately happen at the individual level and the spatial scale is important when looking at the actual occurrence of these interactions.
Expertise
As a computer scientist I have worked mainly in the development of multi-agent based systems and have also some experience in other computational techniques such as genetic algorithms and neural networks. My most recent research in the are of AI was the development of an ecologically inspired technique for the engineering of intelligent agent based systems.
I have been looking for quite a while now at ecological networks, mainly using complex networks analyses techniques. Right now I am interested in network motifs and meso-scale analyses to relate the whole network structure and dynamics to individual species.
In CSSS 2012
I am looking forward to very interesting and fruitful discussions with participants and staff on complex systems in general and the ones I am looking at in particular. I hope to enhance my background in complex systems and networks and catch up new and potentially useful techniques for analysis of my simulations and subject systems of study. I hope to share and develop clearer ideas on how to better tackle my interests above using novel techniques. I am pretty much looking forward to hear what others have to say about my approach and what I could do to improve it. Perhaps some collaborations with staff or participants could be in order?
Projects
Projects that I think could be interesting: (i) envision an evolutionary framework embedded in an individual based simulation system that will allow us to simulate the assembly of a network and then, after several events of speciation and diversification have occurred, analyse the extent to which the interactions among species are conserved phylogenetically. Perhaps testing with empirical data?
(ii) using an individual based approach, compare how the stability of a network changes when interactions among individuals are allowed to change (adapt) when, for example a perturbation has occurred; against the static case in which interactions reconfiguration or formation are not allowed. I am thinking food webs here, but I guess this could be applicable to any discipline. Is it relevant to all of them?
Free time
In my free time I enjoy mountain biking, so, if anyone is interested in going for a ride during any of the weekends we are in Santa Fe, let me know. I have been looking at places where to rent a bike in Santa Fe but still not sure about trails.
See you there!