PLoS Computational Biology: Googling Food Webs: Can an Eigenvector Measure Species' Importance for Coextinctions?A major challenge in ecology is forecasting the effects of species' extinctions, a pressing problem given current human impacts on the planet. Consequences of species losses such as secondary extinctions are difficult to forecast because species are not isolated, but interact instead in a complex network of ecological relationships. Because of their mutual dependence, the loss of a single species
