Coevolution Maintains Diversity in the Stochastic "Kill the Winner" Model
Biological Physics
2018-01-03 v1 Physics and Society
Populations and Evolution
Abstract
The "Kill the Winner" hypothesis is an attempt to address the problem of diversity in biology. It argues that host-specific predators control the population of each prey, preventing a winner from emerging and thus maintaining the coexistence of all species in the system. We develop a stochastic model for the "Kill the Winner" paradigm and show that the stable coexistence state of the deterministic "Kill the Winner" model is destroyed by demographic stochasticity, through a cascade of extinction events. We formulate an individual-level stochastic model in which predator-prey coevolution promotes high diversity of the ecosystem by generating a persistent population flux of species.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1706.02666,
title = {Coevolution Maintains Diversity in the Stochastic "Kill the Winner" Model},
author = {Chi Xue and Nigel Goldenfeld},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.02666},
year = {2018}
}