Research

Our research

Biological, physical, technological, and social systems are formed by interacting units. Network science allows one to explore the consequences of the patterns of interaction of these systems to different types of dynamics, such as information and innovation flow in societies, epidemics spreading, failure cascades in technological systems, commodity flow, disease development within organisms, and indirect effects in ecosystems. In this context, the main scientific problem we explore in our lab is how ecological interactions affect and are affected by evolutionary and coevolutionary dynamics. We address this problem by integrating empirical data on ecological interactions, network science, and different types of evolutionary models. We also explore the consequences of network structure to other forms of dynamics, such as coextinction and population dynamics, and to other forms of networks at different levels of biological organization, from genes to ecosystems and its interactions with human populations.

If you want to know about our coevolutionary model, please refer to our introductory text with codes (in R) for simulations. Additional material about our models are available at Lucas Medeiros's github.

Selected publications (lab members and co-supervised students in bold)

Cazetta, E., P. R. Guimarães. 2026. The disruption of seed dispersal networks: disentangling the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation. Oikos (in press).
Maia, K., P. R. Guimarães. 2024. The hierarchical coevolutionary units of ecological networks. Ecology Letters 27: e14501.
Cosmo, L.G., A. P. A. Assis, M. A. Aguiar, M. M. Pires, A. Valido, P. Jordano, J. N. Thompson, J. Bascompte, P. R. Guimarães. 2023. Indirect effects shape species fitness in coevolved mutualistic networks. Nature 619: 788–792.
Assis, A. P. A., J. N. Thompson, P. C. Santana, P. Jordano, J. Bascompte, P. R. Guimarães. 2020. Genetic correlations and ecological networks shape coevolving mutualisms. Ecology Letters 23: 1789-1799
Guimarães, P. R. 2020. The structure of ecological networks across levels of organization. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 51:433-460.
Guimarães, P. R., M. M. Pires, P. Jordano, J. Bascompte, J. N. Thompson. 2017. Indirect effects drive coevolution in mutualistic networks. Nature 550: 511–514.
Pires, M. M., P. L. Koch, R. A. Farina, M. A. M. de Aguiar, S. F. dos Reis, P. R. Guimaraes. 2015. Pleistocene megafaunal interaction networks became more vulnerable after human arrival. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282: 20151367
Guimarães, P.R., P. Jordano, J. N. Thompson. 2011. Evolution and coevolution in mutualistic networks. Ecology Letters 14:877-885.
Almeida-Neto, M., P. Guimaraes, P. R. Guimarães, R. D. Loyola, W. Urlich. 2008. A consistent metric for nestedness analysis in ecological systems: reconciling concept and measurement. Oikos 117: 1227-1239.
Guimarães, P. R., M. Galetti, P. Jordano. 2008. Seed dispersal anachronisms: rethinking the fruits extinct megafauna ate. PLoS ONE 3: e1745.

Our research program is based upon a network of collaborators around the world. We are deeply thankful for the opportunity of learning from these researchers. In the map below, nodes depict cities in which our collaborators or us are located. Links indicate that that at least a study was coauthored by researchers located in both cities.

This network has emerged as a result of collaborative work with multiple labs and, so far, includes a total of 383 researchers. Most of studies involve former members of my lab, my former supervisors, and some recurring and ongoing collaborators.