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This three-part series of lessons introduces network diagrams and the science of network analysis, which can be useful tools for understanding complex systems and how they function.
- Network Methods to Understand Complex Systems Lesson, Part 1: Ecological Networks
Part 1 uses ecological systems to introduc the basic concepts of networks. Keystone species is one of many foci.
- Network Methods to Understand Complex Systems Less, Part 2: Social Networks
Part 2 uses social systems to introduce basic network concepts and then uses a published study to illustrate the use of these concepts. The study focuses on the role of influential households in patterns of resource sharing among subsistence Alaskans.
- Network Methods to Understand Complex Systems Lesson, Part 3: Socio-Environmental
Part 3 introduces network concepts associated with fully coupled socio-environmental networks. It covers some basics on network metrics, motifs, and multiplex networks and uses a study on illegal trafficking of wildlife species to illustrate why network analysis can be useful in managing natural resources.
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About the Presenters
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Margaret A. Palmer
DirectorDr. Margaret A. Palmer is Director of SESYNC and a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. With a background in hydrology and ecology, Margaret contributes to testing and extending fundamental theory and empirical findings on aquatic ecosystem dynamics. She has worked extensively on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem processes, the biogeochemistry of streams and wetlands, and organism dispersal in aquatic ecosystems. She is an international expert on the restoration of streams and rivers and co-author of the book Foundations of...
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Margaret A. Palmer
DirectorDr. Margaret A. Palmer is Director of SESYNC and a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. With a background in hydrology and ecology, Margaret contributes to testing and extending fundamental theory and empirical findings on aquatic ecosystem dynamics. She has worked extensively on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem processes, the biogeochemistry of streams and wetlands, and organism dispersal in aquatic ecosystems. She is an international expert on the restoration of streams and rivers and co-author of the book Foundations of Restoration Ecology. Margaret is also known for her work at the interface of water science and policy, having served as a technical advisor and innovator to help build solution-focused teams that solve problems with social, legal, policy and scientific aspects. She is extensively published (Google Scholar), has numerous awards, and remains actively engaged in science matters associated with national and local water policies and actions—particularly those associated with the Appalachians.
External Links:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2nGk3QQAAAAJ&hl=enImage
Heidi Scott
Communications AssociateDr. Heidi Scott was a Communications Associate who developed educational tools for SESYNC from 2022 to 2024. She taught at the University of Maryland as a Senior Lecturer in English and Assistant Clinical Professor (2019–2022) in University Honors, where she won an Impact and Innovation Teaching Award for the course Ecology of Identity (2022).
Her books, Chaos and Cosmos (2014) and Fuel: An Ecocritical History (2018), take epistemological and historical approaches to ecology that bridge the humanities and sciences. Her work centers on microcosm models in poetry and empirical science, narrative...
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Heidi Scott
Communications AssociateDr. Heidi Scott was a Communications Associate who developed educational tools for SESYNC from 2022 to 2024. She taught at the University of Maryland as a Senior Lecturer in English and Assistant Clinical Professor (2019–2022) in University Honors, where she won an Impact and Innovation Teaching Award for the course Ecology of Identity (2022).
Her books, Chaos and Cosmos (2014) and Fuel: An Ecocritical History (2018), take epistemological and historical approaches to ecology that bridge the humanities and sciences. Her work centers on microcosm models in poetry and empirical science, narrative meaning in eras of rupture and rapid change, and the literature of energy, especially petroculture versus renewable sources and their cultural and ontological effects.
Her recent creative work has turned to filmmaking. She wrote and directed the short film Landfill (2020), which imagines our 22nd century descendants digging down through the plastic “fossils” of our consume-and-waste culture, set against a futurist society designed around biomimicry and interspecies equality. Part satire, part eco-social vision, the film appeared locally in FilmFest DC (2021) and the Wheaton Film Festival (2021).
Heidi creates pedagogy that integrates human and social insights with bioscience to elucidate how our view of nature has been the co-creation of cultural, economic, and scientific perspectives. She employs several emotional, tonal, and creative registers to blaze a solutions-based path forward.
Heidi earned a PhD and MA in Literature from the University of Maryland and a BS in Biology from the University of North Carolina. She serves on the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE).
External Link:
https://umcp.academia.edu/HeidiScott