An a posteriori measure of network modularity

This article proposes a measure of modularity, which is simply defined as the ratio of interactions established between members of the same modules vs. members of different modules, and applies it to a large dataset of 290 ecological networks representing host–parasite and predator–prey interactions.

Abstract

Measuring modularity is important to understand the structure of networks, and has an important number of real-world implications. However, several measures exists to assess the modularity, and give both different modularity values and different modules composition. In this article, I propose an a posteriori measure of modularity, which represents the ratio of interactions between members of the same modules vs. members of different modules. I apply this measure to a large dataset of 290 ecological networks, to show that it gives new insights about their modularity.