Mutualism promotes diversity and stability in a simple artificial ecosystem

Authored by E Pachepsky, T Taylor, S Jones

Date Published: 2002

DOI: 10.1162/106454602753694747

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Flow charts Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

This work investigates the effect of ecological interactions between organisms on the evolutionary dynamics of a community. A spatially explicit, individual-based model is presented, in which organisms compete for space and resources, We investigated how introducing the potential for mutualistic relationships (where the presence of one type of organism stimulates the growth of another type, and vice versa) affected the evolutionary dynamics of the system. Without this potential, one or a small number of individual types of organisms dominated the simulated community from the onset. When mutualistic relationships were allowed, many persisting types arose, with new types appearing continually. Furthermore, we investigated how the stability of the community differed when mutualistic relationship,, were allowed and disallowed. Our results suggest that the existence of mutualistic relationships improved community stability.

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