Open AccessSpecies extinction in finite replicator systems
Author(s) -
KÄRENLAMPI PETRI P.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
biological journal of the linnean society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.906
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1095-8312
pISSN - 0024-4066
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2012.01885.x
Subject(s) - biology , extinction (optical mineralogy) , scaling , function (biology) , ecology , evolutionary biology , paleontology , geometry , mathematics
Species extinction in finite random replicator systems is investigated as a function of within‐species interaction pressure. Extinctions are shown to increase with increased symmetry of among‐species interactions. The proportion of extinct species increases with increased system size. The effect of system connectance is reduced to a variability effect: connectivity geometry appears unimportant as long as closed subspaces are not formed. A small system can be interpreted as a closed subsystem of a larger system, which allows size‐scaling of the interaction pressure. At large interaction pressure, the scaling unifies the proportion of extinct species. At the limit of small within‐species interaction pressure, a small number of species survive, and the proportion of extinct species shows a system size effect. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2012, 106 , 689–697.