Speciation in a MacArthur model predicts growth, stability and adaptation in ecosystems dynamics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stochastic extension to MacArthur models by incorporating speciation, enabling the simulation of ecosystem growth, stability, and adaptation with observable diversity changes and priority effects.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel stochastic speciation mechanism integrated into MacArthur models, enhancing their ability to simulate evolving ecosystem dynamics.

Findings

Model reproduces rank diversity metric changes.

Captures priority effects in ecosystems.

Aligns with current equilibrium resource-consumer theory.

Abstract

Ecosystems dynamics is often considered as driven by a coupling of species' resource consumption and its population size dynamics. Such resource-population dynamics is captured by MacArthur-type models. One biologically relevant feature that would also need to be captured by such models is the introduction of new and different species. Speciation introduces a stochastic component in the otherwise deterministic MacArthur theory. We describe here how speciation can be implemented to yield a model that is consistent with current theory on equilibrium resource-consumer models, but also displays readily observable rank diversity metric changes. The model also reproduces a priority effect. Adding speciation to a MacArthur-style model so provides an attractively simple extension to explore the rich dynamics in evolving ecosystems.