Heterogeneity in connectivity of habitat networks saves stable coexistence of competing species

Abstract

Coexistence of individuals with different species or phenotypes is often found in nature in spite of competition between them. Stable coexistence of multiple types of individuals have implications for maintenance of ecological biodiversity and emergence of altruism in society, to name a few. Various mechanisms of coexistence including spatial structure of populations, heterogeneous individuals, and heterogeneous environments, have been proposed. In reality, individuals disperse and interact on complex networks. We examine how heterogeneous degree distributions of networks influence coexistence, focusing on models of cyclically competing species. We show analytically and numerically that heterogeneity in degree distributions promotes stable coexistence.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Evolutionary games on graphs
• Cyclic dominance in evolutionary games: A review
• Diverging fluctuations in a spatial five-species cyclic dominance game
• Biodiversity in models of cyclic dominance is preserved by heterogeneity in site-specific invasion rates
• Mean-field theory for double-well systems on degree-heterogeneous networks
• Co-evolution of nodes and links: diversity driven coexistence in cyclic competition of three species
• Oscillatory dynamics in evolutionary games are suppressed by heterogeneous adaptation rates of players
• Vortex generation in the RSP game on the triangular lattice