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arXiv · 1911.11022

Metastability as a coexistence mechanism in a model for dryland vegetation patterns

Lukas Eigentler·Jonathan A. Sherratt
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Abstract

Vegetation patterns are a ubiquitous feature of water-deprived ecosystems. Despite the competition for the same limiting resource, coexistence of several plant species is commonly observed. We propose a two-species reaction-diffusion model based on the single-species Klausmeier model, to analytically investigate the existence of states in which both species coexist. Ecologically, the study finds that coexistence is supported if there is a small difference in the plant species' average fitness, measured by the ratio of a species' capabilities to convert water into new biomass to its mortality rate. Mathematically, coexistence is not a stable solution of the system, but both spatially uniform and patterned coexistence states occur as metastable states. In this context, a metastable solution in which both species coexist corresponds to a long transient (exceeding $10^3$ years in dimensional parameters) to a stable one-species state. This behaviour is characterised by the small size of a positive eigenvalue which has the same order of magnitude as the average fitness difference between the two species. Two mechanisms causing the occurrence of metastable solutions are established: a spatially uniform unstable equilibrium and a stable one-species pattern which is unstable to the introduction of a competitor. We further discuss effects of asymmetric interspecific competition (e.g. shading) on the metastability property.

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Lukas Eigentler, Jonathan A. Sherratt. 2019-11-25. Metastability as a coexistence mechanism in a model for dryland vegetation patterns. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-019-00606-z

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