Competition of residents and invaders in a variable environment: Response to enemies and dangerous noise

TL;DR

This paper investigates how infection, noise, and environmental variability influence competition and invasion dynamics in ecological systems, using a modified Lotka-Volterra model with stochastic elements.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating infection and multiplicative noise into competition dynamics, analyzing their effects on invasion control and bistability.

Findings

Noise type and infection significantly affect invasion outcomes.

Environmental variability can either facilitate or hinder invasion.

Control parameters include diffusivities, infection rates, and noise characteristics.

Abstract

The possible control of competitive invasion by infection of the invader and multiplicative noise is studied. The basic model is the Lotka-Volterra competition system with emergent carrying capacities. Several stationary solutions of the non-infected and infected system are identified as well as parameter ranges of bistability. The latter are used for the numerical study of invasion phenomena. The diffusivities, the infection but in particular the white and colored multiplicative noise are the control parameters. It is shown that not only competition, possible infection and mobilities are important drivers of the invasive dynamics but also the noise and especially its color and the functional response of populations to the emergence of noise.