On the limits to invasion prediction using coexistence outcomes
Jie Deng1, Washington Taylor2, Simon A Levin3
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Journal of Theoretical Biology
|November 26, 2023
Summary
Ecological community dynamics often involve invasion processes. This study reveals that while individual survival in coexistence predicts invader colonization, community-level predictions are less reliable for invasion dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Theoretical Ecology
- Mathematical Biology
Background:
- Ecological communities exhibit complex dynamics driven by probabilistic processes, particularly invasion.
- Theoretical and experimental research has predominantly focused on coexistence dynamics due to technical challenges in studying invasions.
- Understanding the relationship between coexistence and invasion outcomes is crucial for predicting natural ecological systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the predictability of invasion dynamics from coexistence dynamics.
- To determine the limits of translatability between coexistence and invasion outcomes.
- To provide a theoretical framework for understanding these dynamics under environmental uncertainty.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a geometric and probabilistic Lotka-Volterra framework.
- Analyzed the translation of probabilities between different ecological outcomes (survival, persistence, exclusion) in coexistence and invasion scenarios.
- Examined the impact of environmental uncertainty on these dynamics.
Main Results:
- Individual survival probability in coexistence dynamics closely correlates with invader colonization probability.
- The translation of community persistence to community augmentation is less precise.
- The translation of exclusion probability to replacement probability is the least accurate.
Conclusions:
- Coexistence dynamics offer a partial but imperfect predictor of invasion dynamics.
- The Lotka-Volterra framework under environmental uncertainty highlights specific limitations in predicting invasion success from coexistence data.
- These findings offer a testable theoretical basis for ecological invasion research.
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