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Coevolution Maintains Diversity in the Stochastic "Kill the Winner" Model.

Chi Xue1, Nigel Goldenfeld1

  • 1Department of Physics and Center for the Physics of Living Cells, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Loomis Laboratory of Physics, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and Institute for Universal Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.

Physical Review Letters
|January 13, 2018
PubMed
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The "kill the winner" hypothesis, which suggests predators maintain biodiversity, is challenged by stochasticity. Our model shows demographic fluctuations cause extinctions, disrupting stable coexistence and ecosystem diversity.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Theoretical Biology

Background:

  • The "kill the winner" hypothesis proposes that host-specific predators maintain species diversity by preventing any single prey species from dominating.
  • This ecological hypothesis aims to explain the paradox of high biodiversity in natural systems.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of demographic stochasticity on the "kill the winner" hypothesis.
  • To develop and analyze a stochastic model of predator-prey interactions under this paradigm.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a stochastic model to simulate the "kill the winner" dynamics.
  • Formulation of an individual-level stochastic model incorporating predator-prey coevolution.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Demographic stochasticity was shown to destabilize the stable coexistence state predicted by deterministic models.
  • A cascade of extinction events was observed, driven by random fluctuations in population sizes.
  • Predator-prey coevolution in the individual-level model promoted ecosystem diversity by creating persistent population fluxes.

Conclusions:

  • The stable coexistence predicted by the deterministic "kill the winner" model is fragile and susceptible to demographic stochasticity.
  • Stochastic effects, particularly demographic fluctuations, can lead to species loss and disrupt ecological stability.
  • Coevolutionary dynamics at the individual level can generate mechanisms that sustain high biodiversity, offering a potential resolution to the paradox.