Applying PageRank to Extinction
PankRank is often compared to fluid, traveling through edges to node in a network. In a network, all nodes start at the same initial PageRank value — usually 1 over the number of nodes. The PageRank is conserved with each additional computation.
An article titled, Google Algorithm Predicts When Species Will Go 404, Not Found discusses the ability of researchers to determine the process of ecosystem deterioration throughway of an algorithm. Since animals rely on each other for food, the extinction of one animal or key species has the ability to lead to the downfall of an entire ecosystem. Reseachers discovered that PageRank can be uses to model and predict the collapse of an ecosystem. According to Jennifer Dunne, a food web scientist, “the researchers were able to identify which species extinctions within a food web would lead to the biggest chain-reaction of species death.”
PageRank will distinguish species from one another by determining their relative importance. In web networks, an authority that has many hubs endorsing it is an example of an important site. According to an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Stefano Allesina, “we found that the importance of a species can be connected to the amount of matter that flows to it.” Meaning, if the animal is consumed by a large number of other animals, then they are seen as important. Allesina hopes that people will, “start thinking about conservation in a more network-based way.” Through a network approach, PageRank will enable us to see when conservation is necessary to save on specie or the entire ecosystem on the brink of extinction.
URL: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/google-works-different-web