Dual communities in spatial networks

Both human-made and natural supply systems, such as power grids and leaf venation networks, are built to operate reliably under changing external conditions. Many of these spatial networks exhibit community structures. Here, we show that a relatively strong connectivity between the parts of a network can be used to define a different class of communities: dual communities. We demonstrate that traditional and dual communities emerge naturally as two different phases of optimized network structures that are shaped by fluctuations and that they both suppress failure spreading, which underlines their importance in understanding the shape of real-world supply networks. Here the authors introduce dual communities, characterized by strong connections at their boundaries, and show that they are formed as a trade-off between efficiency and resilience in supply networks.