Local network evolution rules drive shortest path multiplicity
It provides a mechanistic explanation for the observed high shortest path multiplicity in real-world networks, relevant to network science researchers.
The paper shows that local network evolution rules naturally lead to high shortest path multiplicity, which correlates with community structure in real networks, as demonstrated through numerical simulations.
The shortest path multiplicity is an important metric of complex networks. The shortest path multiplicity of real networks is high and it correlates with their community structure. Since local network evolution induces network communities, it is possible that a high shortest path multiplicity is the natural expectation of local evolution rules. Here I demonstrate, by means of numerical simulations, that this is indeed the case.