Emerging spatiotemporal patterns in cyclic predator-prey systems with habitats

Three-species cyclic predator-prey systems are known to establish spiral waves that allow species to coexist. In this study, we analyze a structured heterogeneous system which gives one species an advantage to escape predation in an area that we refer to as a habitat and study the effect on species coexistence and emerging spatiotemporal patterns. Counterintuitively, the predator of the advantaged species emerges as dominant species with the highest average density inside the habitat. The species given the advantage in the form of an escape rate has the lowest average density until some threshold value for the escape rate is exceeded, after which the density of the species with the advantage overtakes that of its prey. Numerical analysis of the spatial density of each species as well as of the spatial two-point correlation function for both inside and outside the habitats allow a detailed quantitative discussion. Our analysis is extended to a six-species game that exhibits spontaneous spiral waves, which displays similar but more complicated results.