arXiv subjects

Rafael D'Andrea

Publications and source records attributed to Rafael D'Andrea.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2018

Translucent windows: How uncertainty in competitive interactions impacts detection of community pattern

Trait variation and similarity among coexisting species can provide a window into the mechanisms that maintain their coexistence. Recent theoretical explorations suggest that competitive interactions will lead to groups, or clusters, of species with similar traits. However, theoretical predictions typically assume complete knowledge of the map between competition and measured traits. These assumptions limit the plausible application of these patterns for inferring competitive interactions in nature. Here we relax these restrictions and find that the clustering pattern is robust to contributions of unknown or unobserved niche axes. However, it may not be visible unless measured traits are close proxies for niche strategies. We conclude that patterns along single niche axes may reveal properties of interspecific competition in nature, but detecting these patterns requires natural history expertise firmly tying traits to niches.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2017

The impact of species-neutral stage structure on macroecological patterns

Despite its radical assumption of ecological equivalence between species, neutral biodiversity theory can often provide good fits to species abundance distributions observed in nature. Major criticisms of neutral theory have focused on interspecific differences, which are in conflict with ecological equivalence. However, neutrality in nature is also broken by differences between conspecific individuals at different life stages, which in many communities may vastly exceed interspecific differences between individuals at similar stages. These within-species asymmetries have not been fully explored in species-neutral models, and it is not known whether demographic stage structure affects macroecological patterns in neutral theory. Here we present a two-stage neutral model where fecundity and mortality change as an individual transitions from one stage to the other. We explore several qualitatively different scenarios, and compare numerically obtained species abundance distributions to the predictions of unstructured neutral theory. We find that abundance distributions are generally robust to this kind of stage structure, but significant departures from unstructured predictions occur if adults have sufficiently low fecundity and mortality. In addition, we show that the cumulative number of births per species, which is distributed as a power law with a 3/2 exponent, is invariant even when the abundance distribution departs from unstructured model predictions. Our findings potentially explain power law-like abundance distributions in organisms with strong demographic structure, such as eusocial insects and humans, and partially rehabilitate species abundance distributions from past criticisms as to their inability to distinguish between biological mechanisms.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2009

T-duality for open strings in the presence of backgrounds and noncommutativity

We investigate the effect of T-duality on noncommutativity. Starting with open strings ending on a D2-brane wrapped on a $T^2$ torus in the presence of a Kalb Ramond field, we consider Buscher transformations on the coordinates and background. We find that the dual system is commutative. We also study alternative transformations that can preserve noncommutativity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Bound states for one-electron atoms in higher dimensions

We study the Schrodinger equation for one-electron atoms in space-times with d >= 4 spatial dimensions where the Gauss law is assumed to be valid. It is shown that there are no normalizable wave functions corresponding to bound states. The consistency with the classical limit is discussed.

quant-ph↗