Networks of plants: how to measure similarity in vegetable species

Despite the common misconception of nearly static organisms, plants do i= nteract continuously with the environment and with each other. It is fair t= o assume that during their evolution they developed particular features to = overcome similar problems and to exploit possibilities from environment. In= this paper we introduce various quantitative measures based on recent adva= ncements in complex network theory that allow to measure the effective simi= larities of various species. By using this approach on the similarity in fr= uit-typology ecological traits we obtain a clear plant classification in a = way similar to traditional taxonomic classification. This result is not tri= vial, since a similar analysis done on the basis of diaspore morphological = properties do not provide any clear parameter to classify plants species. C= omplex network theory can then be used in order to determine which feature = amongst many can be used to distinguish scope and possibly evolution of pla= nts. Future uses of this approach range from functional classification to q= uantitative determination of plant communities in nature.