Mathematical analysis of density-dependent coevolution with interspecific competition (Q1086517)

The authors study the density-dependent coevolution of two competing, diploid, diallelic populations with overlapping generations and with genotype fitnesses exhibiting partial dominance. The model used is a four-dimensional system of time-autonomous ordinary differential equations, whose solutions are confined to a region in a four-dimensional space whose components are the two population densities and an allele frequency from each population as functions of time. Assuming that the heterozygote fitness in each population is a linear combination of the homozygote fitnesses and that the interspecific competition is stronger than the intraspecific competition, it is shown that for a nongeneric set of parameter values the system has a normally hyperbolic 2-dimensional plane of equilibria with a 3-dimensional stable manifold with threshold characteristics. Under \(C^ 1\) perturbations the plane of equilibria turns into a normally hyperbolic 2-dimensional manifold of solutions, but the dynamics keeps its qualitative features. In the case when the population interaction is of Lotka-Volterra type without intraspecific interaction, the normally hyperbolic 2-manifold is shown to consist of solutions connecting four boundary equilibria. The threshold behavior is shown to persist for a wide range of parameter values and results in an ecological and genetic exclusion where one population and an allele in that population dominate and the other population disappears asymptotically. This is contrasted with a different case discussed by the authors in a previous paper [J. Math. Biol. 24, 193-206 (1986; Zbl 0585.92017)].