Tipping points emerge from weak mutualism in metacommunities

Denk, Jonas; Hallatschek, Oskar

doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011899

Title: Tipping points emerge from weak mutualism in metacommunities

Journal Article · 05 March 2024 · PLoS Computational Biology (Online)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011899 · OSTI ID:2324659

^[1];

^[2]

Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Leipzig (Germany)

The coexistence of obligate mutualists is often precariously close to tipping points where small environmental changes can drive catastrophic shifts in species composition. For example, microbial ecosystems can collapse by the decline of a strain that provides an essential resource on which other strains cross-feed. Here, we show that tipping points, ecosystem collapse, bistability and hysteresis arise even with very weak (non-obligate) mutualism provided the population is spatially structured. Based on numeric solutions of a metacommunity model and mean-field analyses, we demonstrate that weak mutualism lowers the minimal dispersal rate necessary to avoid stochastic extinction, while species need to overcome a mean threshold density to survive in this low dispersal rate regime. Our results allow us to make numerous predictions for mutualistic metacommunities regarding tipping points, hysteresis effects, and recovery from external perturbations, and let us draw general conclusions for ecosystems even with random, not necessarily mutualistic, interactions and systems with density-dependent dispersal rather than direct mutualistic interactions.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; BER-ERCAP0024898

OSTI ID:: 2324659

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 2318739; OSTI ID: 2372868

Journal Information:: PLoS Computational Biology (Online), Vol. 20, Issue 3; ISSN 1553-7358

Publisher:: Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
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population dynamics
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mutualism

Title: Tipping points emerge from weak mutualism in metacommunities

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