简介: |
Biological systems are complex assemblages of a large number of
?elements (e.g., molecules, cells, tissues, or organisms) that form a
?multitude of nonlinear and nonstationary interactions at small scales
?that spontaneously self-organize to affect emergent properties of the
?whole systems at larger scales. Network science has emerged as a
?discipline to better understand the function and dynamics of complex
?interacting systems. However, existing networks are intrinsically
?limited to revealing pairwise interactions, whereas biological
systems ?are often characterized by higher-order interactions
involving groups ?of three or more elements. Here, by integrating
allometric scaling ?theory and evolutionary game theory, we develop a
statistical ?mechanical model for coalescing all elements of the
systems into a ?dynamically varying, multilayer hypernetwork from big
static data. ?Beyond simple networks that only can identify and
describe pairwise ?interactions as edges, the hypernetwork can also
disentangle ?high-order interactions using hyperedges composed of
more than two ?elements. We classify hypernetworks into two
categories, active ?hypernetworks and passive hypernetworks that
reveal how interactions ?between elements influence, and are
influenced by, other elements, ?respectively. We integrate ecological
behavior theory to reconstruct ?mutualism-, altruism-, aggression-,
and antagonism-typical ?hypernetworks that can fully capture the
underlying mechanisms and ?emergent properties of biological systems.
Our ecologically-based ?statistical mechanical model, empirically
validated by microbiome data ?analysis, provides a tool to more
precisely unveil the internal ?workings of a broader domain of
biological communities and systems. |