A phase transition induces chaos in a predator-prey ecosystem with a dynamic fitness landscape.

ABSTRACT: In many ecosystems, natural selection can occur quickly enough to influence the population dynamics and thus future selection. This suggests the importance of extending classical population dynamics models to include such eco-evolutionary processes. Here, we describe a predator-prey model in which the prey population growth depends on a prey density-dependent fitness landscape. We show that this two-species ecosystem is capable of exhibiting chaos even in the absence of external environmental variation or noise, and that the onset of chaotic dynamics is the result of the fitness landscape reversibly alternating between epochs of stabilizing and disruptive selection. We draw an analogy between the fitness function and the free energy in statistical mechanics, allowing us to use the physical

SUBMITTER: Gilpin W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5517034 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature