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Species competition: coexistence, exclusion and clustering

Hernández-García, Emilio; López, Cristóbal; Pigolotti, Simone; Andersen, Ken H.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 367, 3183-3195 (2009)

We present properties of Lotka-Volterra equations describing ecological competition among a large number of interacting species. First we extend previous stability conditions to the case of a non-homogeneous niche space, i.e. that of a carrying capacity depending on the species trait. Second, we discuss mechanisms leading to species clustering and obtain an analytical solution for a state with a lumped species distribution for a specific instance of the system. We also discuss how realistic ecological interactions may result in different types of competition coeffcients.