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Evolutionary stability of coexistence due to the storage effect in a two-season model
- Source :
- Theoretical Ecology. 10:91-103
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2016.
-
Abstract
- The question of species coexistence has been central to ecology since its founding. Ever-present environmental variation may be one answer to that question. Previous models have demonstrated that species can exploit this variation to coexist with competitors by having different environmental responses (the storage effect). When traits governing species’ environmental response can evolve, however, coexistence is not assured. In this study, we use a continuous time, two-season model to determine the evolutionary outcome of competing species evolving in their seasonal performance trait. We extend the competitive exclusion principle to show that the storage effect can allow no more than N species to coexist on N discrete seasons with no relative nonlinearity. We find a broad region of parameter space where coexistence is evolutionarily stable. The size of this region depends on the period of fluctuations relative to the individual lifespan. Relatively long period fluctuations yield a large coexistence region, but as the period decreases, the region narrows and disappears asymptotically. Finally, we cast our adaptive dynamics technique in terms of Chesson’s concept of equalizing and stabilizing mechanisms to demonstrate that the breakdown in coexistence at short periods is due to loss of the stabilizing covariance between the environment and competition.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Coexistence theory
Ecology
Ecological Modeling
media_common.quotation_subject
Evolutionary stability
Storage effect
Parameter space
Biology
Covariance
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Competition (biology)
010601 ecology
Competitive exclusion principle
Trait
Statistical physics
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 18741746 and 18741738
- Volume :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Theoretical Ecology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........cc549221b3fe5b63cabbe27dcd9c025f