Dynamics and stability in coevolutionary ecological systems. I. Community stability and coevolutionarily stable states (Q1103545)

The authors study the effects of coevolution on community structures using an extension of \textit{J. Roughgarden}'s formalism [ibid. 9, 388-424 (1979; Zbl 0355.92015), An introduction to evolutionary ecology and population genetic theory. McMillan, New York (1979)]. The extension assumes that a coevolved community is asymptotically stable when coevolution takes place at a genetically noninvasible boundary. This is proved for the general case of n interacting species. From this, a community persistence function is defined that allows measuring the domain of attraction for the community as well as the resilience time, that is, the time taken for a perturbation to decay \(1-e^{-1}\) of its initial value.