Topological Data Analysis of Pollination Resource Complexes

Abstract: Interactions between plants and pollinators are critical for species survival. Plants provide resources which are consumed by pollinators. Similarly, pollinators provide resources to plants in the form of pollination services. Sets of consumers sharing a common resource generate a combinatorial simplicial complex describing a community. A plant or pollinator species generally won't interact equally with all potential resources, so binary interactions don't paint a full picture of the system. Topological data analysis takes this into account by incorporating persistence with respect to a varying interaction strength parameter. We discuss our preliminary analysis of these constructions, including comparison to simulated results. The current work extends foundations by Sugihara with an emphasis on topological persistence and new data.

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