No Arabic abstract
Adaptive dynamics is a widely used framework for modeling long-term evolution of continuous phenotypes. It is based on invasion fitness functions, which determine selection gradients and the canonical equation of adaptive dynamics. Even though the derivation of the adaptive dynamics from a given invasion fitness function is general and model-independent, the derivation of the invasion fitness function itself requires specification of an underlying ecological model. Therefore, evolutionary insights gained from adaptive dynamics models are generally model-dependent. Logistic models for symmetric, frequency-dependent competition are widely used in this context. Such models have the property that the selection gradients derived from them are gradients of scalar functions, which reflects a certain gradient property of the corresponding invasion fitness function. We show that any adaptive dynamics model that is based on an invasion fitness functions with this gradient property can be transformed into a generalized symmetric competition model. This provides a precise delineation of the generality of results derived from competition models. Roughly speaking, to understand the adaptive dynamics of the class of models satisfying a certain gradient condition, one only needs a complete understanding of the adaptive dynamics of symmetric, frequency-dependent competition. We show how this result can be applied to number of basic issues in evolutionary theory.
We perform individual-based Monte Carlo simulations in a community consisting of two predator species competing for a single prey species, with the purpose of studying biodiversity stabilization in this simple model system. Predators are characterized with predation efficiency and death rates, to which Darwinian evolutionary adaptation is introduced. Competition for limited prey abundance drives the populations optimization with respect to predation efficiency and death rates. We study the influence of various ecological elements on the final state, finding that both indirect competition and evolutionary adaptation are insufficient to yield a stable ecosystem. However, stable three-species coexistence is observed when direct interaction between the two predator species is implemented.
The outcome of competition among species is influenced by the spatial distribution of species and effects such as demographic stochasticity, immigration fluxes, and the existence of preferred habitats. We introduce an individual-based model describing the competition of two species and incorporating all the above ingredients. We find that the presence of habitat preference --- generating spatial niches --- strongly stabilizes the coexistence of the two species. Eliminating habitat preference --- neutral dynamics --- the model generates patterns, such as distribution of population sizes, practically identical to those obtained in the presence of habitat preference, provided an higher immigration rate is considered. Notwithstanding the similarity in the population distribution, we show that invasibility properties depend on habitat preference in a non-trivial way. In particular, the neutral model results results more invasible or less invasible depending on whether the comparison is made at equal immigration rate or at equal distribution of population size, respectively. We discuss the relevance of these results for the interpretation of invasibility experiments and the species occupancy of preferred habitats.
Population dynamics of a competitive two-species system under the influence of random events are analyzed and expressions for the steady-state population mean, fluctuations, and cross-correlation of the two species are presented. It is shown that random events cause the population mean of each specie to make smooth transition from far above to far below of its growth rate threshold. At the same time, the population mean of the weaker specie never reaches the extinction point. It is also shown that, as a result of competition, the relative population fluctuations do not die out as the growth rates of both species are raised far above their respective thresholds. This behavior is most remarkable at the maximum competition point where the weaker species population statistics becomes completely chaotic regardless of how far its growth rate in raised.
The competitive exclusion principle asserts that coexisting species must occupy distinct ecological niches (i.e. the number of surviving species can not exceed the number of resources). An open question is to understand if and how different resource dynamics affect this bound. Here, we analyze a generalized consumer resource model with externally supplied resources and show that -- in contrast to self-renewing resources -- species can occupy only half of all available environmental niches. This motivates us to construct a new schema for classifying ecosystems based on species packing properties.
Noise through its interaction with the nonlinearity of the living systems can give rise to counter-intuitive phenomena. In this paper we shortly review noise induced effects in different ecosystems, in which two populations compete for the same resources. We also present new results on spatial patterns of two populations, while modeling real distributions of anchovies and sardines. The transient dynamics of these ecosystems are analyzed through generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of multiplicative noise, which models the interaction between the species and the environment. We find noise induced phenomena such as quasi-deterministic oscillations, stochastic resonance, noise delayed extinction, and noise induced pattern formation. In addition, our theoretical results are validated with experimental findings. Specifically the results, obtained by a coupled map lattice model, well reproduce the spatial distributions of anchovies and sardines, observed in a marine ecosystem. Moreover, the experimental dynamical behavior of two competing bacterial populations in a meat product and the probability distribution at long times of one of them are well reproduced by a stochastic microbial predictive model.