Evolution to alternative levels of stable diversity leaves areas of niche space unexplored
Fig 3
Asymmetric competition can lead to Red Queen dynamics.
Red queen dynamics denotes a situation in which one or more populations continuously evolve on a a stable limit cycle in phenotype space. Simulation were run using the radially symmetric carrying capacity and initiated with 10 random species. Panels A and B show the complete history of evolutionary dynamics, with time in panel A increasing from white to blue and carrying capacity increasing from black = 0 to white = 1. Panel C is a depiction of the population at the end of the simulation. Colors in panel C represent the invasion fitness (per capita growth rate of a new mutant if it were to arise). Positive invasion fitness is shown in shades of orange (maximum of 0.17), negative in blue, and invasion fitness equal to zero in white. Arrows are proportional to the square root of the selection gradient for each species. Simulation time was cut to only 100 time steps in the figure so the limit cycles could be more easily seen.