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Species clustering in competitive Lotka-Volterra models

Simone Pigolotti·Cristobal Lopez·Emilio Hernandez-Garcia
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Abstract

We study the properties of Lotka-Volterra competitive models in which the intensity of the interaction among species depends on their position along an abstract niche space through a competition kernel. We show analytically and numerically that the properties of these models change dramatically when the Fourier transform of this kernel is not positive definite, due to a pattern forming instability. We estimate properties of the species distributions, such as the steady number of species and their spacings, for different types of kernels.

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Simone Pigolotti, Cristobal Lopez, Emilio Hernandez-Garcia. 2007-02-16. Species clustering in competitive Lotka-Volterra models. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.98.258101

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