Abstract

We introduce an Interaction- and Trade-off-based Eco-Evolutionary Model (ITEEM), in which species are competing in a well-mixed system, and their evolution in interaction trait space is subject to a life-history trade-off between replication rate and competitive ability. We demonstrate that the shape of the trade-off has a fundamental impact on eco-evolutionary dynamics, as it imposes four phases of diversity, including a sharp phase transition. Despite its minimalism, ITEEM produces a remarkable range of patterns of eco-evolutionary dynamics that are observed in experimental and natural systems. Most notably we find self-organization towards structured communities with high and sustained diversity, in which competing species form interaction cycles similar to rock-paper-scissors games.

Data availability

The source code of the model is freely available at https://github.com/BioinformaticsBiophysicsUDE/ITEEM

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Farnoush Farahpour

    Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
    For correspondence
    farnoush.farahpour@uni-due.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4510-8483
  2. Mohammadkarim Saeedghalati

    Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3387-6263
  3. Verena Brauer

    Biofilm Centre, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Daniel Hoffmann

    Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
    For correspondence
    daniel.hoffmann@uni-due.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2973-7869

Funding

No external funding was received for this work.

Copyright

© 2018, Farahpour et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Farnoush Farahpour
  2. Mohammadkarim Saeedghalati
  3. Verena Brauer
  4. Daniel Hoffmann
(2018)
Trade-off shapes diversity in eco-evolutionary dynamics
eLife 7:e36273.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36273

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36273

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