Related papers: Self-organized biodiversity in biotic resource sys…
Mutualistic networks are formed when the interactions between two classes of species are mutually beneficial. They are important examples of cooperation shaped by evolution. Mutualism between animals and plants plays a key role in the…
Vegetation patterns are a ubiquitous feature of water-deprived ecosystems. Despite the competition for the same limiting resource, coexistence of several plant species is commonly observed. We propose a two-species reaction-diffusion model…
Ecosystems are commonly organized into trophic levels -- organisms that occupy the same level in a food chain (e.g., plants, herbivores, carnivores). A fundamental question in theoretical ecology is how the interplay between trophic…
Current theories about mechanisms promoting species co-existence in diverse communities assume that species only interact ecologically. Species are treated as discrete evolutionary entities, even though abundant empirical evidence indicates…
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…
According to the competitive exclusion principle, in a finite ecosystem, extinction occurs naturally when two or more species compete for the same resources. An important question that arises is: when coexistence is not possible, which…
A fundamental problem in evolutionary ecology research is to explain how different species coexist in natural ecosystems. This question is directly related with species trophic competition. However, competition theory, based on the…
The composition of ecological communities varies not only between different locations but also in time. Understanding the fundamental processes that drive species towards rarity or abundance is crucial to assessing ecosystem resilience and…
The rapid advancement of environmental sequencing technologies, such as metagenomics, has significantly enhanced our ability to study microbial communities. The eubiotic composition of these communities is crucial for maintaining ecological…
The magnitude and variability of Earth's biodiversity have puzzled scientists ever since paleontologic fossil databases became available. We identify and study a model of interdependent species where both endogenous and exogenous impacts…
Multiple stable states - the coexistence of two or more distinct ecological configurations under identical environmental conditions - have attracted sustained interest in ecology, yet the field still lacks a unified framework connecting…
Structure, composition and stability of ecological populations are shaped by the inter- and intra-species interactions within these communities. It remains to be fully understood how the interplay of these interactions with other factors,…
The increasing volume of ecologically and biologically relevant data has revealed a wide collection of emergent patterns in living systems. Analyzing different datasets, ranging from metabolic gene-regulatory to species interaction…
Natural birth and death are fundamental mechanisms of population dynamics in ecosystems and have played pivotal roles in shaping population dynamics. Nevertheless, in studies of cyclic competition systems governed by the rock-paper-scissors…
Ecosystems display a complex spatial organization. Ecologists have long tried to characterize them by looking at how different measures of biodiversity change across spatial scales. Ecological neutral theory has provided simple predictions…
Recent theoretical studies have shown that demographic stochasticity can greatly increase the tendency of asexually reproducing phenotypically diverse organisms to spontaneously evolve into localised clusters, suggesting a simple mechanism…
Similarity of competitors has been proposed to facilitate coexistence of species because it slows down competitive exclusion, thus making it easier for equalizing mechanisms to maintain diverse communities. On the other hand, chaos can…
The myriad microscopic interactions among the individual organisms that constitute an ecological system collectively give rise, at the macroscopic scale, to evolutionary trends. The ability to detect the directionality of such trends is…
Adaptive control in biological systems, such as intestinal immunity, remains poorly understood despite detailed knowledge of underlying regulatory networks. We propose an alternative framework based on stochastic martingale turnover, in…
Mutualistic interactions, where individuals from different species can benefit from each other, are widespread across ecosystems. This study develops a general deterministic model of mutualism involving two populations, assuming that…