Update documentation

Author: jarrodmillman

_sources/workshop/abstracts-2018.rst.txt

@@ -27,12 +27,42 @@ also propel our understanding of ecological interactions forward.
 
 .. _newman:
 
-Incomplete sampling of ecological networks
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+Detecting biases in empirically-constructed ecological networks
+---------------------------------------------------------------
 
 | **Erica Newman**
 
-TBD
+
+The structure of ecological interactions is commonly understood through
+analyses of interaction networks. However, these analyses may be sensitive to
+sampling biases in both the interactors (the nodes of the network) and
+interactions (the links between nodes), because the detectability of species
+and their interactions is highly heterogeneous. These issues may affect the
+accuracy of empirically constructed networks. Yet statistical biases introduced
+by sampling error are difficult to quantify in the absence of full knowledge of
+the underlying ecological network’s structure. We explore the properties of
+several types of large-scale modular networks with predetermined topologies,
+intended to represent a wide variety of communities that vary in size and types
+of ecological interactions. We then sampled these networks with different
+sampling designs that may be employed in field observations. The observed
+networks generated by each sampling process were then analyzed with respect to
+the number of components, size of components and other network metrics. The
+sampling effort needed to estimate underlying network properties accurately
+depends both on the sampling design and on the underlying network topology. In
+particular, networks with random or scale-free modules require more complete
+sampling to reveal their structure, compared to networks whose modules are
+nested or bipartite. Overall, the modules with nested structure were the
+easiest to detect, regardless of sampling design. Sampling according to species
+degree (number of interactions) was consistently found to be the most accurate
+strategy to estimate network structure. Conversely, sampling according to
+module (representing different interaction types or taxa) results in a rather
+complete view of certain modules, but fails to provide a complete picture of
+the underlying network. We recommend that these findings be incorporated into
+the design and implementation of projects aiming to characterize large networks
+of species interactions in the field to reduce sampling biases. The software
+scripts *NetGen* and *NetSampler* developed to construct and sample networks,
+respectively, are provided for use in further explorations of network structure
+and comparisons to real interaction networks.
 
 
 .. _mckenzie: