Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 4: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems (joint session DY, BP, CPP)

CPP 4.2: Talk

Monday, March 16, 2015, 10:00–10:15, BH-N 243

A New Dimension: The Influence of Two Dimensional Niche Space on Evolutionary Food Web Models — •Daniel Ritterskamp and Bernd Blasius — ICBM, University Oldenburg, Germany

Food webs encode feeding interactions of ecological communities, originating from an intricate interplay of evolutionary and ecological processes. This dynamic can be described by evolutionary food web models, in which feeding interactions between species are related to the relative distance of their adaptive traits (e.g., body size) on a niche axis. However, not much is known about evolutionary food web dynamics in space.

Here, we go beyond traditional approaches and develop an evolutionary food web model in a two dimensional niche space, where the additional niche axis might describe a spatial coordinate or an environmental variable. Using numerical simulations, we investigate population dynamics, evolutionary behaviour and the emerging community structure in space. The model is able to produce both static and dynamic food webs, depending on the width of the interaction kernel; whereas food web complexity is determined mainly by the interaction strength.

We observe rich dynamics including: spatio-temporal patterns, arms races, red queen dynamics, as well as sub-food webs moving in space. By sampling the spatial axis, local food webs are recovered, which can be related to empirical data. We conclude that the additional niche-dimension is essential to capture realistic patterns of spatially structured food webs.