The persistence of bipartite ecological communities with Lotka-Volterra dynamics

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how bipartite ecological communities with Lotka-Volterra dynamics persist over time, deriving exact phase diagrams and identifying key factors influencing community stability and species persistence.

Contribution

It extends existing models to bipartite networks, providing exact results for community phase behavior and identifying conditions affecting species persistence and community stability.

Findings

Identifies phase transitions to multiple-attractor and unbounded states.

Determines conditions leading to the absence of consumers.

Provides exact phase diagrams for bipartite ecological communities.

Abstract

The assembly and persistence of ecological communities can be understood as the result of the interaction and migration of species. Here we study a single community subject to migration from a species pool in which inter-specific interactions are organised according to a bipartite network. Considering the dynamics of species abundances to be governed by generalised Lotka-Volterra equations, we extend work on unipartite networks to we derive exact results for the phase diagram of this model. Focusing on antagonistic interactions, we describe factors that influence the persistence of the two guilds, locate transitions to multiple-attractor and unbounded phases, as well identify a region of parameter space in which consumers are essentially absent in the local community.