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Population dynamics of generalist and specialist strategies under feast-famine cycles
Fig 5
Normalized population density distribution.
(A) Simulation with two environmental conditions. The x-axis represents the geometric mean of growth rates, and the y-axis represents the difference in logarithmic growth rates between the two environments. We varied 
from 10−1.0 to 100.3 and ran simulations until t = 2.0 × 105. Population sizes were time-averaged over the last 20 nutrient supply intervals. Growth rates are defined by Eq (14) with m = 2, c = 0.2 and 
. (B) Plot of the growth-to-death ratio for each phenotype. The phenotypes with the highest growth-to-death ratio and with the largest population at a given 
are highlighted by the solid red line and the dashed blue line, respectively. (C-E) Simulation with three environmental conditions. Each dot represents one phenotype. We simulated the population dynamics up to t = 2.0 × 105. Population sizes were time-averaged over the last 30 nutrient supply intervals. The growth rates of each phenotype across the three environments, denoted as 
, were set to 
, where x + y + z = 0 holds. The phenotypes are discretely distributed on this plane such that adjacent phenotypes are generated by holding one parameter constant while increasing one of the remaining two by a fixed step size and decreasing the other by the same amount. Through panels A and C to E, the supplied nutrient type is switched deterministically, cycling through the specified nutrient set. For each simulation, the logarithm of the temporally averaged population in each bin, normalized from 0 to 1, is plotted. The parameters are set to a = 0.01, b = 1, S0 = 10 and 
. Phenotypes can switch only between adjacent bins, with a transition probability of 10−4.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014265.g005