Marginally stable equilibria in critical ecosystems

In this work we study the stability of the equilibria reached by ecosystems formed by a large number of species. The model we focus on are Lotka-Volterra equations with symmetric random interactions. Our theoretical analysis, confirmed by our numerical studies, shows that for strong and heterogeneou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNew journal of physics Vol. 20; no. 8; pp. 83051 - 83062
Main Authors Biroli, Giulio, Bunin, Guy, Cammarota, Chiara
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bristol IOP Publishing 31.08.2018
Institute of Physics: Open Access Journals
Subjects
Condensed matter physics
ecology
Economic models
Ecosystems
Equilibrium
Identities
Physics
self organized criticality
Spin glasses
Stability
Volterra integral equations
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Summary:In this work we study the stability of the equilibria reached by ecosystems formed by a large number of species. The model we focus on are Lotka-Volterra equations with symmetric random interactions. Our theoretical analysis, confirmed by our numerical studies, shows that for strong and heterogeneous interactions the system displays multiple equilibria which are all marginally stable. This property allows us to obtain general identities between diversity and single species responses, which generalize and saturate May's stability bound. By connecting the model to systems studied in condensed matter physics, we show that the multiple equilibria regime is analogous to a critical spin-glass phase. This relation suggests new experimental ways to probe marginal stability.
Bibliography:NJP-108653.R1
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ISSN:1367-2630
1367-2630
DOI:10.1088/1367-2630/aada58