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Abstract In studying resilience in temporal human networks, relying solely on global network measures would be inadequate; latent sub-structural network mechanisms need to be examined to determine the extent of impact and recovery of these networks during perturbations, such as urban flooding. In this study, we utilize high-resolution aggregated location-based data to construct temporal human mobility networks in Houston in the context of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey. We examine motif distribution, motif persistence, temporal stability, and motif attributes to reveal latent sub-structural mechanisms related to the resilience of human mobility networks during disaster-induced perturbations. The results show that urban flood impacts persist in human mobility networks at the sub-structure level for several weeks. The impact extent and recovery duration are heterogeneous across different network types. Also, while perturbation impacts persist at the sub-structure level, global topological network properties indicate that the network has recovered. The findings highlight the importance of examining the microstructures and their dynamic processes and attributes in understanding the resilience of temporal human mobility networks (and other temporal networks). The findings can also provide disaster managers, public officials, and transportation planners with insights to better evaluate impacts and monitor recovery in affected communities.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
Strong and weak environmental perturbations cause contrasting restructure of ant transportation networks
Dynamic transportation networks are embedded in all levels of biological organization. Ever-growing anthropogenic disturbances and an increasingly variable climate highlight the importance of understanding how these networks restructure under environmental perturbations. Polydomous wood ants provide a convenient model system to study the resilience of self-organizing multi-source, multi-sink transportation networks. We used 10 years of longitudinal empirical data on both unperturbed and experimentally manipulated colony networks to develop and validate a comprehensive dynamic simulation model to study network restructuring after resource removal. We performed simulation experiments to study the effects of excluding food sources with varying importance, either temporarily or permanently, imitating pulse and press perturbations of the networks. We found that removing heavily used resources, corresponding to a strong targeted perturbation, persistently decreased network efficiency, unlike random or weak perturbations. We also found that strong perturbations had excessively adverse effects on robustness and function, reducing the networks’ ability to withstand potential future perturbations. When transportation networks develop around the efficient use of a few key resources, they may be unable to quickly recover from the loss of these through self-organized restructuring. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the interaction of perturbation strength and network structure in studying transportation network dynamics.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1755425
- PAR ID:
- 10640704
- Publisher / Repository:
- Royal Society Publishing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Volume:
- 292
- Issue:
- 2044
- ISSN:
- 1471-2954
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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