Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Species competition: coexistence, exclusion and clustering

2009; Royal Society; Volume: 367; Issue: 1901 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1098/rsta.2009.0086

1471-2962

Emilio Hernández‐García, Crístobal López, Simone Pigolotti, Ken H. Andersen,

Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies

We present properties of Lotka–Volterra equations describing ecological competition among a large number of interacting species. First we extend previous stability conditions to the case of a non-homogeneous niche space, i.e. that of a carrying capacity depending on the species trait. Second, we discuss mechanisms leading to species clustering and obtain an analytical solution for a state with a lumped species distribution for a specific instance of the system. We also discuss how realistic ecological interactions may result in different types of competition coefficients.