http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5874/323

In relation to the “Rich get richer phenomena” and “power laws”, Geoscience recently published an article describing how these emerging studies are relevent beyond the social world of stocks, social networks, and web page popularity. The article focuses on complexity and non-universiality (non-normal models). “One such avenue is based on the science of complexity, which describes systems with many strongly interacting parts, concentrating on how the parts connect. … Today, scientists are increasingly finding that non-Gaussian, in particular power law, probability distributions are also widespread in nature, giving rise to rare events with large impacts. Insights have again come from studies of critical phenomena, where power laws are known to be a direct result of the heightened sensitivity to random perturbations conferred by long-range correlations.” Thus these new studies could be increasingly used in the field of environmetal science. The effects of small changes could be studied using the non-normal, power law models. For instance the effects a seemingly minute amount of a particular pollutant could have drastic, exponential effects. For example, the exponential rise in mercury levels of large oceanic predators. Relating to “food networks”, “recent work has demonstrated that the stability of food webs depends not on network complexity (or geometry) as such but on the overall patterning of link strengths.” Though there are numerous other variables that get in the way of data collection, Geoscience is optimistic on the implementains of this new approach toward studying the earth’s ecosystems: “If this analogy can also be applied successfully to an ecological model, it would be a dramatic example of how critical phenomena can inform earth system science.”

In brainstorming, it is interesting to consider whether the rich get richer phenomena is apparent in nature. Take for instance, non-native species. Is it just their lack of predators that allow them to take-over, or do other factors contribute? Could a “poor get poorer” phenomena exist among endangered species? Even further, how have minor disturbances effected the endangerment and extinction of certain species?