maxnodf
calculates the maximum NODF value that can be achieved in a
bipartite network with a given number of rows, columns and links.
You can install maxnodf
from github with:
install.packages("devtools") # install devtools if needed
devtools::install_github("CHoeppke/maxnodf")
maxnodf
has one function: maxnodf()
. For a given network, maxnodf
calculates the maximum nestedness that can be achieved in a network with
a given number of rows, columns and links, subject to the constraint
that all rows and columns must have at least one link (i.e. row and
column totals must always be >= 1). As input, maxnodf()
takes either
a numeric matrix describing a bipartite network (a bipartite incidence
matrix where elements are positive numbers if nodes interact, and 0
otherwise) or a numeric vector of length three of the form c(#Rows, #Columns, #Links)
.
This allows nestedness values to be normalised as NODF/max(NODF) following Song et al (2017). To control for connectance and network size, Song et al. (2017) suggest an additional normalisation that can be used: (NODF/max(NODF))/(C * log(S)) where C is the network connectance and S is the geometric mean of the number of plants and pollinators in the network.
maxnodf
has three algorithms for finding the maximum nestedness of a
bipartite network. These can be set using the quality
argument. Lower
quality settings are faster, but find worse optima. Higher quality
settings are slower, but find better optima.
quality = 0
, uses a greedy algorithm.quality = 1
, uses a greedy algorithm plus hillclimbing.quality = 2
, uses a simulated annealing algorithm, with the greedy algorithm output as the start point. Best results, but requires the most computation time.
m <- matrix(0,10,10) # initialise an empty network
m[1,] <- 1 # ensure all row species have at least one link
m[,1] <- 1 # ensure all column species have at least one link
m[2:10,2:10] <- sample(0:1, 9 * 9, replace = TRUE) # randomise the rest of the matrix
maxnodf(web = m, quality = 2) # calculate the maximum nestedness
The code is released under the MIT license (see LICENSE
file).
Song, C., Rohr, R.P. and Saavedra, S., 2017. Why are some plant–pollinator networks more nested than others?. Journal of Animal Ecology, 86(6), pp.1417-1424.