Multi-species coexistence in Lotka-Volterra competitive systems with crowding effects

Classical Lotka-Volterra (LV) competition equation has shown that coexistence of competitive species is only possible when intraspecific competition is stronger than interspecific competition, i.e., the species inhibit their own growth more than the growth of the other species. Note that density eff...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2018-01, Vol.8 (1), p.1198-8, Article 1198
Main Authors: Gavina, Maica Krizna A., Tahara, Takeru, Tainaka, Kei-ichi, Ito, Hiromu, Morita, Satoru, Ichinose, Genki, Okabe, Takuya, Togashi, Tatsuya, Nagatani, Takashi, Yoshimura, Jin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/158/1745
631/158/2451
631/158/853
631/158/856
Algorithms
Biodiversity
Coexistence
Competition
Crowding
Ecosystem
Growth rate
Humanities and Social Sciences
Interspecific
Models, Theoretical
Mortality
multidisciplinary
Population density
Population studies
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Species diversity
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Summary:Classical Lotka-Volterra (LV) competition equation has shown that coexistence of competitive species is only possible when intraspecific competition is stronger than interspecific competition, i.e., the species inhibit their own growth more than the growth of the other species. Note that density effect is assumed to be linear in a classical LV equation. In contrast, in wild populations we can observed that mortality rate often increases when population density is very high, known as crowding effects. Under this perspective, the aggregation models of competitive species have been developed, adding the additional reduction in growth rates at high population densities. This study shows that the coexistence of a few species is promoted. However, an unsolved question is the coexistence of many competitive species often observed in natural communities. Here, we build an LV competition equation with a nonlinear crowding effect. Our results show that under a weak crowding effect, stable coexistence of many species becomes plausible, unlike the previous aggregation model. An analysis indicates that increased mortality rate under high density works as elevated intraspecific competition leading to the coexistence. This may be another mechanism for the coexistence of many competitive species leading high species diversity in nature.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-19044-9