Overcome Competitive Exclusion in Ecosystems

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the formation of chasing triplets among consumers and resources can violate the Competitive Exclusion Principle, providing a new explanation for biodiversity in ecosystems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel modeling framework showing how chasing triplets enable coexistence beyond traditional competitive exclusion limits.

Findings

Chasing triplets can lead to stable coexistence of multiple species.

The model explains biodiversity patterns not accounted for by classical theory.

Broad applicability to various consumer-resource ecosystems.

Abstract

Explaining biodiversity in nature is a fundamental problem in ecology. An outstanding challenge is embodied in the so-called Competitive Exclusion Principle: two species competing for one limiting resource cannot coexist at constant population densities, or more generally, the number of consumer species in steady coexistence cannot exceed that of resources. The fact that competitive exclusion is rarely observed in natural ecosystems has not been fully understood. Here we show that by forming chasing triplets among the consumers and resources in the consumption process, the Competitive Exclusion Principle can be naturally violated. The modeling framework developed here is broadly applicable and can be used to explain the biodiversity of many consumer-resource ecosystems and hence deepens our understanding of biodiversity in nature.