How the storage effect and the number of temporal niches affect biodiversity in stochastic and seasonal environments
Fig 1
Mean time to extinction, T, is plotted against the initial frequency of the focal species x.
Black circles are the outcomes of a Monte-Carlo simulation, and the colored lines are the theoretical predictions for the corresponding case (see legend) as obtained from numerical solutions of Eq (8) with the μ(x) and σ2(x) from Eqs (9)–(12). Details of the solution are presented in the Methods section. The hierarchy TGP > TGS > TLP > TLS is evident. In panel (a), both species have the same mean fitness (s0 = 0) and therefore all the lines are symmetric around x = 1/2. Other parameters in panel (a) are N = 600, γ = 0.25 and δ = 0.55. In panel (b) the focal species is slightly advantageous, with s0 = 0.01 (all other parameters are the same), so the maximum time to extinction appears at x < 1/2.