Nature is not static, but is constantly changing in complex and interdependent ways.
Here we discuss a solution to the daunting problem of quantifying interactions in freely evolving ecosystems (as well as other complex biological systems). More generally, it is a practical way of tracking (in real time) ephemeral causal linkages that are embedded in an evolving network of factors. This has been a central yet seemingly unapproachable problem for ecology and particularly for studies of food webs and ecological interactions in general. Ours is an empirical dynamic method (EDM) that should be useful to scientists and managers alike, with implications to fields beyond ecology.
Results/Conclusions
We show that interactions in nature are episodic and that ecosystems are structured by ephemeral bottlenecks. As such, ecological dynamics cannot be reasonably represented as having time-averaged or constant interactions/transitions such as portrayed in classical Volterra and Logistic models, or in typical Markov models.