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Abstract Recent developments of eco-evolutionary models have shown that evolving feedbacks between behavioral strategies and the environment of game interactions, leading to changes in the underlying payoff matrix, can impact the underlying population dynamics in various manners. We propose and analyze an eco-evolutionary game dynamics model on a network with two communities such that players interact with other players in the same community and those in the opposite community at different rates. In our model, we consider two-person matrix games with pairwise interactions occurring on individual edges and assume that the environmental state depends on edges rather than on nodes or being globally shared in the population. We analytically determine the equilibria and their stability under a symmetric population structure assumption, and we also numerically study the replicator dynamics of the general model. The model shows rich dynamical behavior, such as multiple transcritical bifurcations, multistability, and anti-synchronous oscillations. Our work offers insights into understanding how the presence of community structure impacts the eco-evolutionary dynamics within and between niches.
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The contribution of evolvability to the eco‐evolutionary dynamics of competing species
Abstract Evolvability is the capacity of a population to generate heritable variation that can be acted upon by natural selection. This ability influences the adaptations and fitness of individual organisms. By viewing this capacity as a trait, evolvability is subject to natural selection and thus plays a critical role in eco‐evolutionary dynamics. Understanding this role provides insight into how species respond to changes in their environment and how species coexistence can arise and be maintained. Here, we create a G‐function model of competing species, each with a different evolvability. We analyze population and strategy (= heritable phenotype) dynamics of the two populations under clade initiation (when species are introduced into a population), evolutionary tracking (constant, small changes in the environment), adaptive radiation (availability of multiple ecological niches), and evolutionary rescue (extreme environmental disturbances). We find that when species are far from an eco‐evolutionary equilibrium, faster‐evolving species reach higher population sizes, and when species are close to an equilibrium, slower‐evolving species are more successful. Frequent, minor environmental changes promote the extinction of species with small population sizes, regardless of their evolvability. When several niches are available for a species to occupy, coexistence is possible, though slower‐evolving species perform slightly better than faster‐evolving ones due to the well‐recognized inherent cost of evolvability. Finally, disrupting the environment at intermediate frequencies can result in coexistence with cyclical population dynamics of species with different rates of evolution.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1734030
- PAR ID:
- 10572800
- Publisher / Repository:
- Ecology and Evolution
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecology and Evolution
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 2045-7758
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10591
