Department of Zoology and Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Physics Department, University of Santiago of Chile (USACH), Santiago, Chile.
Commun Biol. 2021 Apr 23;4(1):502. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02021-4.
The processes and mechanisms underlying the origin and maintenance of biological diversity have long been of central importance in ecology and evolution. The competitive exclusion principle states that the number of coexisting species is limited by the number of resources, or by the species' similarity in resource use. Natural systems such as the extreme diversity of unicellular life in the oceans provide counter examples. It is known that mathematical models incorporating population fluctuations can lead to violations of the exclusion principle. Here we use simple eco-evolutionary models to show that a certain type of population dynamics, boom-bust dynamics, can allow for the evolution of much larger amounts of diversity than would be expected with stable equilibrium dynamics. Boom-bust dynamics are characterized by long periods of almost exponential growth (boom) and a subsequent population crash due to competition (bust). When such ecological dynamics are incorporated into an evolutionary model that allows for adaptive diversification in continuous phenotype spaces, desynchronization of the boom-bust cycles of coexisting species can lead to the maintenance of high levels of diversity.
生物多样性的起源和维持的过程和机制一直是生态学和进化的核心问题。竞争排斥原理表明，共存物种的数量受资源数量或物种对资源利用的相似性限制。海洋中单细胞生命的极端多样性等自然系统提供了反例。已知，纳入种群波动的数学模型可能导致对排斥原理的违反。在这里，我们使用简单的生态进化模型表明，某种类型的种群动态，繁荣-萧条动态，可以允许进化出比稳定平衡动态所预期的更多的多样性。繁荣-萧条动态的特征是长时间的几乎指数增长（繁荣）和随后由于竞争而导致的种群崩溃（萧条）。当这种生态动态被纳入允许在连续表型空间中进行适应性多样化的进化模型时，共存物种的繁荣-萧条周期的失同步可以导致高水平多样性的维持。
