Suppression of Ecological Competition by Apex Predator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a common predator can stabilize a two-species competitive system that would otherwise be unstable, using Lotka-Volterra models with evolutionary parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing predator presence can suppress ecological competition and stabilize unstable species interactions.

Findings

Predator presence stabilizes competitive dynamics

Evolutionary parameter variation affects system stability

Game-theoretic implications are discussed

Abstract

In the framework of Lotka-Volterra dynamics with evolutionary parameter variation, it is shown that a system of two competing species which is evolutionarily unstable, if left to themselves, is stabilized by a commmon predator preying on both of them. Game-theoretic implications of the results are also discussed.