Falgueras-Cano Javier, Falgueras-Cano Juan Antonio, Moya Andrés
Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), University of Valencia and CSIC, 46980 Valencia, Spain.
Department of Languages and Computer Science, University of Málaga, 29016 Málaga, Spain.
Biology (Basel). 2022 Oct 9;11(10):1477. doi: 10.3390/biology11101477.
This work analyzes the evolutionary consequences of different aggregation levels of species distribution with an Evolutionary Cellular Automaton (). We have found that in habitats with the same carrying capacity, aggregated distributions preserve smaller populations than do uniform distributions, i.e., they are less efficient. Nonetheless, we have also found that aggregated distributions, among other factors, can help the evolutionary stability of some biological interactions, such as predator-prey interactions, despite their granting less individual fitness. Besides, the competitive exclusion principle does not usually stand in populations with aggregated distribution. We have applied to study the effects of aggregated distribution in two notorious cases: in the so-called and in gregarious animals. In doing so, we intend to ratify long-established ecological knowledge explaining these phenomena from a new perspective. In the first case, due to aggregate distribution, large aggregations of digital organisms mimicking very abundant planktonic species, leave large patches or oceanic areas free for other less competitive organisms, which mimic rare species, to prosper. In this case, we can see how effects, such as ecological drift and the small portion, act simultaneously. In the second case of aggregation, the aggregate distribution of gregarious animals could be explained under specialized predator-prey interactions and interdemic competition. Thus, digital organisms that imitate predators reduce the competitive capacity of their prey, destabilizing their competitiveness against other species. The specialized predator also goes extinct if the prey goes extinct by natural selection. Predators that have an aggregate distribution compensate the prey and thus avoid exclusion. This way there are more predator-free patches in which the prey can prosper. However, by granting greater colonization capacity to its prey, the predator loses competitiveness. Therefore, it is a multilevel selection event in which group adaptation grows to the detriment of the predator as an individual.
这项工作使用进化细胞自动机分析了物种分布不同聚集水平的进化后果。我们发现，在具有相同承载能力的栖息地中，聚集分布比均匀分布保留的种群数量更少，即效率更低。尽管如此，我们还发现，聚集分布在其他因素中，尽管其赋予个体的适应性较低，但有助于某些生物相互作用的进化稳定性，例如捕食者 - 猎物相互作用。此外，竞争排斥原理在聚集分布的种群中通常不成立。我们已应用[具体方法]来研究聚集分布在两个著名案例中的影响：在所谓的[案例一]和群居动物中。这样做的目的是从一个新的视角来证实长期以来解释这些现象的生态学知识。在第一个案例中，由于聚集分布，模仿非常丰富的浮游物种的数字生物的大量聚集，为其他竞争力较弱、模仿稀有物种的生物留下了大片的海洋区域以供其繁荣发展。在这种情况下，我们可以看到诸如生态漂变和小部分效应是如何同时起作用的。在第二个聚集案例中，群居动物的聚集分布可以在专门的捕食者 - 猎物相互作用和种群间竞争的情况下得到解释。因此，模仿捕食者的数字生物会降低其猎物的竞争能力，破坏其与其他物种的竞争力。如果猎物因自然选择而灭绝，专门的捕食者也会灭绝。具有聚集分布的捕食者会补偿猎物，从而避免被排斥。这样就有更多没有捕食者的区域，猎物可以在其中繁荣发展。然而，通过赋予其猎物更大的定殖能力，捕食者失去了竞争力。因此，这是一个多层次选择事件，其中群体适应性的增长是以捕食者个体为代价的。
