%N 3
%J Physical Review E
%R 10.1103/PhysRevE.69.035101
%A Guido Caldarelli
%A C?cile  Caretta Cartozo
%A Paolo De Los Rios
%A Vito D. P. Servedio
%K PACS: 89.75.Fb, 89.75.Hc, 05.40.-a, 05.65.+b
%X The widespread occurrence of an inverse square relation in the hierarchical distribution of subcommunities within communities (or subspecies within species) has been recently invoked as a signature of hierarchical self-organization within social and ecological systems. Here we show that, whether such systems are self-organized or not, this behavior is the consequence of the treelike classification method. Different treelike classifications (both of real and truly random systems) display a similar statistical behavior when considering the sizes of their sub-branches.
%L eprints1128
%D 2004
%I American Physical Society
%V 69
%T Widespread occurrence of the inverse square distribution in social sciences and taxonomy