Related papers: Generalised Lotka-Volterra model with hierarchical…
Species-rich ecosystems often exhibit multiple stable states with distinct species compositions. Yet, the factors determining the likelihood of each state's occurrence remain poorly understood. Here, we characterize and explain the…
The significant role of space in maintaining species coexistence and determining community structure and function is well established. However, community ecology studies have mainly focused on simple competition and predation systems, and…
We consider a couple of models for the dynamics of the populations of two interacting species, inspired by Lotka-Volterra's classical equations. The novelty of this work is that the interaction terms are non local and the interaction occurs…
Understanding the forces shaping ecological communities is crucially important to basic science and conservation. In recent years, considerable progress was made in explaining communities using simple and general models, with neutral theory…
Understanding the mechanisms that govern species coexistence and biodiversity represents a fundamental challenge in ecology. This study extends the classic rock-paper-scissors model by introducing a context-dependent higher-order…
Evolutionary and ecosystem dynamics are often treated as different processes --operating at separate timescales-- even if evidence reveals that rapid evolutionary changes can feed back into ecological interactions. A recent long-term field…
At what level does selective pressure effectively act? When considering the reproductive dynamics of interacting and mutating agents, it has long been debated whether selection is better understood by focusing on the individual or if…
Lotka's seminal work (A.J. Lotka A., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 6 (1920) 410) "on certain rhythmic relations'' is already one hundred years old, but the research activity about pattern formations due to cyclical dominance is more vibrant…
Ecological systems are studied using many different approaches and mathematical tools. One approach, based on the Jacobian of Lotka-Volterra type models, has been a staple of mathematical ecology for years, leading to many ideas such as on…
Randomly-assembled dynamical systems are theoretically predicted to be unstable upon crossing a critical threshold of complexity, as first shown by May. Yet, empirical complex systems exhibit remarkable stability, indicating the presence of…
The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies. Species interact not only with each other but indirectly through environmental effects, however…
Recently we have introduced a simplified model of ecosystem assembly (Capitan et al., 2009) for which we are able to map out all assembly pathways generated by external invasions in an exact manner. In this paper we provide a deeper…
Social foraging is a widespread form of animal foraging in which groups of individuals coordinate their decisions to exploit resources in the environment. Animals show a variety of social structures from egalitarian to hierarchical. In this…
We analyse the asymptotic behaviour of integro-differential equations modelling $N$ populations in interaction, all structured by different traits. Interactions are modelled by non-local terms involving linear combinations of the total…
Group formation and coordination are fundamental characteristics of living systems, essential for performing tasks and ensuring survival. Interactions between individuals play a key role in group formation, and the impact of resource…
We live and cooperate in networks. However, links in networks only allow for pairwise interactions, thus making the framework suitable for dyadic games, but not for games that are played in groups of more than two players. Here, we study…
Cooperation plays a fundamental role in societal and biological domains, and the population structure profoundly shapes the dynamics of evolution. Practically, individuals behave either altruistically or egoistically in multiple groups,…
Stochastic simulations of cyclic three-species spatial predator-prey models are usually performed in square lattices with nearest neighbor interactions starting from random initial conditions. In this Letter we describe the results of…
Individual species may experience diverse outcomes, from prosperity to extinction, in an ecological community subject to external and internal variations. Despite the wealth of theoretical results derived from random matrix ensembles, a…
The assembly of ecological communities from a pool of species is central to ecology, but the effect of this process on properties of community interaction networks is still largely unknown. Here, we use a systematic analytical framework to…