Related papers: Methods for calculating coexistence mechanisms: Be…
In this paper, we discuss the conceptual underpinnings of Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT), a quantitative framework for understanding ecological coexistence. In order to use MCT to infer how species are coexisting, one must relate a complex…
To understand the mechanisms underlying species coexistence, ecologists often study invasion growth rates of theoretical and data-driven models. These growth rates correspond to average per-capita growth rates of one species with respect to…
Ecologists have put forward many explanations for coexistence, but these are only partial explanations; nature is complex, so it is reasonable to assume that in any given ecological community, multiple mechanisms of coexistence are…
Local coexistence of species in large ecosystems is traditionally explained within the broad framework of niche theory. However, its rationale hardly justifies rich biodiversity observed in nearly homogeneous environments. Here we consider…
We analyze the long term behavior of interacting populations which can be controlled through harvesting. The dynamics is assumed to be discrete in time and stochastic due to the effect of environmental fluctuations. We present extinction…
Reaction-diffusion systems with a Lotka-Volterra-type reaction term, also known as competition-diffusion systems, have been used to investigate the dynamics of the competition among $m$ ecological species for a limited resource necessary to…
Understanding under what conditions interacting populations, whether they be plants, animals, or viral particles, coexist is a question of theoretical and practical importance in population biology. Both biotic interactions and…
If two species exhibit different nonlinear responses to a single shared resource, and if each species modifies the resource dynamics such that this favors its competitor, they may stably coexist. This coexistence mechanism, known as…
How large ecosystems can create and maintain the remarkable biodiversity we see in nature is probably one of the biggest open questions in science, attracting attention from different fields, from Theoretical Ecology to Mathematics and…
Species sharing a prey or a predator species may go extinct due to exploitative or apparent competition. We examine whether evolution of the shared species acts as a coexistence mechanism and to what extent the answer depends on the genetic…
The properties of competition models where all individuals are identical are relatively well-understood; however, juveniles and adults can experience or generate competition differently. We study here less well-known structured competition…
Certain invasive plants may rely on interference mechanisms (allelopathy, e.g.) to gain competitive superiority over native species. But expending resources on interference presumably exacts a cost in another life-history trait, so that the…
Preserving biodiversity and ecosystem stability is a challenge that can be pursued through modern statistical mechanics modeling. Here we introduce a variational maximum entropy-based algorithm to evaluate the entropy in a minimal ecosystem…
Understanding the mechanisms of species coexistence has always been a fundamental topic in ecology. Classical theory predicts that interspecific competition may select for traits that stabilize niche differences, although recent work shows…
In large clonal populations, several clones generally compete which results in complex evolutionary and ecological dynamics: experiments show successive selective sweeps of favorable mutations as well as long-term coexistence of multiple…
Populations experience a complex interplay of continuous and discrete processes: continuous growth and interactions are punctuated by discrete reproduction events, dispersal, and external disturbances. These dynamics can be modeled by…
Ecological models traditionally explain stability and coexistence through pairwise interactions among species. These interactions can also involve groups of three or more species, higher-order interactions, which recent theory suggests can…
We develop a theoretical framework to understand the persistence and coexistence of competitive species in a spatially explicit metacommunity model with a heterogeneous dispersal kernel. Our analysis, based on methods from the physics of…
We use the optimal foraging theory to study coexistence between two plant species and a generalist pollinator. We compare conditions for plant coexistence for non-adaptive vs. adaptive pollinators that adjust their foraging strategy to…
One of the main motivations for the use of competitive coevolution systems is their ability to capitalise on arms races between competing species to evolve increasingly sophisticated solutions. Such arms races can, however, be hard to…