Chuliang Song

About

We are a team of quantitative ecologists at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA. We develop rigorous theory through interdisciplinary tools, devise monitoring-applicable metrics, and validate these approaches with empirical data from a broad range of ecosystems.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Ecology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Biology
• Sociology
• Data science
• Epistemology
• Mathematics
• Environmental science
• Environmental resource management

Selected publications

• Assembly Graph as the Rosetta Stone of Ecological Assembly

  Environmental Microbiology · 2025-01-01 · 10 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Ecological assembly-the process of ecological community formation through species introductions-has recently seen exciting theoretical advancements across dynamical, informational, and probabilistic approaches. However, these theories often remain inaccessible to non-theoreticians, and they lack a unifying lens. Here, I introduce the assembly graph as an integrative tool to connect these emerging theories. The assembly graph visually represents assembly dynamics, where nodes symbolise species co…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trophic tug‐of‐war: Coexistence mechanisms within and across trophic levels

  Ecology Letters · 2024-04-01 · 7 citations

  letterOpen access1st author

  Ecological communities encompass rich diversity across multiple trophic levels. While modern coexistence theory has been widely applied to understand community assembly, its traditional formalism only allows assembly within a single trophic level. Here, using an expanded definition of niche and fitness differences applicable to multitrophic communities, we study how diversity within and across trophic levels affects species coexistence. If each trophic level is analysed separately, both lower- a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Equilibrium Conundrum

  Ecology Letters · 2025-11-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  The idea that natural systems tend to be at equilibrium dates back to the origin of the field of ecology and continues to underlie most ecological theory. However, empirical evidence for equilibrium dynamics in nature and in experiments is surprisingly elusive. Here, we address this conundrum by first exploring the history of equilibrium in ecological theory and the evidence for equilibrium dynamics in natural systems. We then search the literature to quantify how empiricists deal with equilibri…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rigorous validation of ecological models against empirical time series

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2025-10-27 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Assembly Graph as the Rosetta Stone of Ecological Assembly

  2024-08-02 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Ecological assembly---the process of ecological community formation through species introductions---has recently seen exciting theoretical advancements across dynamical, informational, and probabilistic approaches. However, these theories often remain inaccessible to non-theoreticians, and they lack a unifying lens. Here, I introduce the assembly graph as an integrative tool to connect these emerging theories. The assembly graph visually represents assembly dynamics, where nodes symbolize specie…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Serguei Saavedra

  41 shared

• Marie‐Josée Fortin

  11 shared

• Andrew Gonzalez

  McGill University

  11 shared

• György Barabás

  Linköping University

  9 shared

• Marco Tulio Angulo

  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

  9 shared

• Luis Montejano

  Universidad Rovira i Virgili

  9 shared

• A. Kelley

  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

  9 shared

• Benno I. Simmons

  University of Exeter

  7 shared

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