My understanding of assortativity is it is a measure of how much similar node cluster in such a network, such as high degree nodes clustering with high degree nodes. However I am not completely sure what this is telling me about the network beyond simply that. To expand on my knowledge gap, I am not entirely sure what the value is of knowing the assortativity in the first place.

To put an example forward; if you have a microbial interaction network where for example, positive associations indicate being vertically transmitted together from mother to daughter and negative associations indicate the opposite. What would the assortativity of such a network tell you?

Any help would be appreciated.