Symmetry of interactions rules in incompletely connected random replicator ecosystems.

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Theoretical Biology

Background:

• Investigating the dynamics of ecological systems with speciation and extinction is crucial for understanding biodiversity.
• Random replicator systems offer a theoretical framework for modeling evolutionary processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the evolution of incompletely connected species systems using random replicators.
• To determine how speciation and interaction symmetry influence system complexity, size, and diversity.

Main Methods:

• Modeling species evolution using random replicator dynamics.
• Analyzing the impact of speciation parameters and interaction types (symmetric vs. antisymmetric) on system properties.
• Examining within-species interaction pressure and its effect on species diversity.

Main Results:

• Evolving random replicator systems with speciation grow large and complex, contingent on speciation parameters.
• Antisymmetric interactions promote large, complex systems, while symmetric interactions result in small systems with rapid newcomer extinction.
• High within-species interaction pressure significantly increases species diversity.
• Average fitness evolves universally, but symmetry and connectivity are observed only in small systems.

Conclusions:

• System architecture, particularly interaction symmetry, dictates the scale and complexity of evolving species systems.
• Within-species interactions are a key driver of species diversity.
• The studied replicator systems do not exhibit self-organized criticality, and the Lotka-Volterra model is an inefficient implementation.