Comparing temporal and aggregated network descriptions of fluid transport in the Mediterranean Sea

• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.111.024211
• ArXiv number: 2306.17527

Ocean currents exhibit strong time dependence at all scales that influences physical and biochemical dynamics.
Network approaches to fluid transport permit to address explicitly how connectivity across the seascape is
affected by the spatiotemporal variability of currents. However, such temporal aspect is mostly neglected, relying
on a static representation of the flow. We here investigate the role of current variability on networks describing
physical transport across the Mediterranean basin. We first focus on degree distributions and community structure
comparing ensembles of temporal networks that explicitly resolve time dependence and their aggregated, i.e.,
time-averaged, counterparts. Furthermore, we explore the implications of the two approaches in a simple reaction
dispersal model for a generic tracer. Our analysis evidences that aggregation induces structural network changes
that cannot be easily avoided, not even introducing a pruning of the aggregated adjacency matrix. We also
highlight that, depending on the time scales considered, the importance of the temporal features of the networks
can vary significantly. Finally, we find that the tracer evolution obtained from a temporal dispersal kernel cannot
be always approximated by aggregated adjacency matrices, in particular during transients of the dynamics.

• Full paper

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