The advantage of being slow: the quasi-neutral contact process
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Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
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Artigo de periódico
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Resumo
According to the competitive exclusion principle, in a finite ecosystem, extinction occurs naturally
when two or more species compete for the same resources. An important question
that arises is: when coexistence is not possible, which mechanisms confer an advantage to
a given species against the other(s)? In general, it is expected that the species with the
higher reproductive/death ratio will win the competition, but other mechanisms, such as
asymmetry in interspecific competition or unequal diffusion rates, have been found to
change this scenario dramatically. In this work, we examine competitive advantage in the
context of quasi-neutral population models, including stochastic models with spatial structure
as well as macroscopic (mean-field) descriptions. We employ a two-species contact
process in which the ªbiological clockº of one species is a factor of α slower than that of the
other species. Our results provide new insights into how stochasticity and competition interact
to determine extinction in finite spatial systems. We find that a species with a slower biological
clock has an advantage if resources are limited, winning the competition against a
species with a faster clock, in relatively small systems. Periodic or stochastic environmental
variations also favor the slower species, even in much larger systems.
Abstract
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Ecologia, Ecossistema, Física
Palavras-chave
Ecology, Quasi-stationary simulation, Nonequilibrium phase transitions
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Endereço externo
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182672