Survival of the Scarcer

Abstract

We investigate extinction dynamics in the paradigmatic model of two competing species A and B that reproduce (A-->2A, B-->2B), self-regulate by annihilation (2A-->0, 2B-->0), and compete (A+B-->A, A+B-->B). For a finite system that is in the well-mixed limit, a quasi-stationary state arises which describes coexistence of the two species. Because of discrete noise, both species eventually become extinct in time that is exponentially long in the quasi-stationary population size. For a sizable range of asymmetries in the growth and competition rates, the paradoxical situation arises in which the numerically disadvantaged species according to the deterministic rate equations survives much longer.

5 pages, 2-column revtex4-1 format; current revision has stylistic changes in response to referees, for publication in PRE Rapid Communications

References in corpus (6)

• Extinction Rates for Fluctuation-Induced Metastabilities : A Real-Space WKB Approach
• Disease extinction in the presence of non-Gaussian noise
• Minimizing the population extinction risk by migration
• Multiple extinction routes in stochastic population models
• Switching between phenotypes and population extinction
• WKB calculation of an epidemic outbreak distribution

Cited by in corpus (11)

• WKB theory of large deviations in stochastic populations
• Extinction of oscillating populations
• Fixation probabilities in populations under demographic fluctuations
• Extinction dynamics from meta-stable coexistences in an evolutionary game
• Quantitative Analysis of a Transient Dynamics of a Gene Regulatory Network
• The first shall be last: selection-driven minority becomes majority
• Survival of the Scarcer in Space
• The advantage of being slow: the quasi-neutral contact process
• Altruism in populations at the extinction transition
• Fixation in Competing Populations: Diffusion and Strategies for Survival
• Diffusion plays an unusual role in ecological quasi-neutral competition in metapopulations