Phase transition to chaos in complex ecosystems with non-reciprocal species-resource interactions

Abstract

Non-reciprocal interactions between microscopic constituents can profoundly shape the large-scale properties of complex systems. Here, we investigate the effects of non-reciprocity in the context of theoretical ecology by analyzing a generalization of MacArthur's consumer-resource model with asymmetric interactions between species and resources. Using a mixture of analytic cavity calculations and numerical simulations, we show that such ecosystems generically undergo a phase transition to chaotic dynamics as the amount of non-reciprocity is increased. We analytically construct the phase diagram for this model and show that the emergence of chaos is controlled by a single quantity: the ratio of surviving species to surviving resources. We also numerically calculate the Lyapunov exponents in the chaotic phase and carefully analyze finite-size effects. Our findings show how non-reciprocal interactions can give rise to complex and unpredictable dynamical behaviors even in the simplest ecological consumer-resource models.

5 pages, 4 figures; SI: 22 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Generalized Lotka-Volterra equations with random, non-reciprocal interactions: the typical number of equilibria
• Statistical mechanics and stability of a model eco-system
• Aging by near-extinctions in many-variable interacting populations
• Quenched complexity of equilibria for asymmetric Generalized Lotka-Volterra equations

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Enhanced stability and chaotic condensates in multi-species non-reciprocal mixtures
• Phase Transitions in single species Ising Models with Non-Reciprocal couplings
• Efficient detection of chaos through the computation of the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI) by the multi-particle method
• Continuous-time multifarious systems -- Part II: non-reciprocal multifarious self-organization
• Dissipative phase transition of interacting non-reciprocal fermions
• Critical behavior of a phase transition in the dynamics of interacting populations
• Random motility regulation as a generic mechanism of community formation
• Zero-temperature dynamics of the spherical model with non-reciprocal interactions
• Higher-codimension points as organizing centers in nonreciprocal pattern-forming systems with O(2)-symmetry